The Principles of an Affair
by LilyBartAndTheOthers
Summary: They meet through an ad, respect a singular pact until they decide to cross the lines. WK fic.  Thank you, Geedee!
1. Introduction

**Side One:**

_We had sex everywhere, in every single position. From the comfortable mattress of a five-star hotel to the cold tiles of some Chinese restaurant restroom, there isn't one place that we haven't tried at some point. In six years it seems rather normal, no? Especially since it is the exact reason we are here in the first place. _

_I had put an ad in an adult magazine, looking for a sort of pact; something that would suit me and him in the quietest way. _

_Thirty-three-year-old woman looking for_

_a nice man to share her fantasies_

_weekdays, Manhattan only_

_Three lines to summarize a very singular aim _ my own one _ but very soon the replies made it to the mailbox I had opened for the occasion and I found myself before an incredible panel of choices. _

_Business men, artists, singletons or married. Curiously enough I didn't give a damn about their current status _ after all mine was very well defined _ and I simply had a look at their words, the way they had decided to make contact with me. It was odd to only face their hand-writings first, not having the mere idea of what they could look like. But it had its charms somehow, brought excitement to the whole thing at the end. _

_I selected two of them but only one showed up and he turned out to be the right one. His name was Will and even though he seemed to know Manhattan rather well, it seemed obvious that he hadn't grown up there. I can make the distinction between natives and the other ones very easily but still without being able to bring up some sort of explanation about it. It is there _ inside of me _ and within a second I can tell you whether some guy has spent his whole life here. _

_The interview barely lasted ten minutes. The truth is that I had nothing to ask him. He was elegant, and even good-looking; certainly not the kind of man abducting you in the middle of the city. So I offered him to follow me very quickly. I had rented a room upstairs, for the rest of the afternoon. _

_He never complained, never let his curiosity win over all the rest and accepted the deal _ blurry vows of silence and secrecy _ with a barely contained relief. _

_He had satisfied me entirely so why would I have kept on interviewing strangers? I had found the man of my peculiar sexual fantasies and his name was Will. _

_We started seeing each other once a week, on Thursday because it was easier for him. Then after some time _ a short while if I remember well _ I rented a room twice. The more time we spent together, the more fantasies I had in mind. I never considered him as a slave though, don't get me wrong. He was just a partner, a singular one. _

_The rules came along by themselves: no question about our respective personal lives, about our jobs or family names. I never took off my wedding band but he never seemed to care, never stopped on it then stared at me perplexed, curious or eager to learn something. He kept on kissing my fingers, licking one after another with a flame of lust in his eyes... It is one of his favorite foreplay. I got to know them after a while._

**Side Two:**

_I found her ad by accident while leafing through an abandoned adult magazine on the table of some bar one night. I had just fought with Michael for the thousandth time and while he had left to go back to his place _ to retrieve to a bed I was clearly not invited to step in_ I had remained at the counter of the club, a hand on my Martini and my eyes on the dance floor but growing tired of the scene, I turned around all of a sudden. This is when everything changed, when everything tipped over. _

_Six years later, I am still unable to say if it was for the best or the worst._

_She got me with her smile. As much as I noticed the "haute-couture" clothes and the expensive bag _ she probably lived in The Upper East Side _ my eyes stared at her lips all along and within a second I knew that I was hypnotized. I don't even know why I sent a reply to her ad, why I went to the hotel or why I accepted to go upstairs. There was just something about her, something I couldn't explain but yet I wanted to experience, live to the flesh. _

_Her name is Karen. She is married, never tried to hide that from me which I appreciate. Sometimes I wonder if she has children but then it all goes blank. We only have sex together. I have seen her naked a lot more than all dressed, know her sighs and moans when I completely ignore her opinion about the economic issues our country is going through. So I can't picture her out as a mother. She is a woman to me, an incredible lover; very addicting._

_I think she has a thing for poetry. Not that I have asked her but several times she showed up with a bag full of anthologies, mostly European ones. We do talk _ at times _ but the truth is that I like this ounce of mystery going around. It brings something more to the scene, spicing it up somehow._

_We met when she was thirty-three years old. Six years had passed by but as much as she is going to be thirty-nine, I have no idea when her birthday is. Perhaps it has already taken place and we have got to spend some time together that day. Unless she had organized a big party with her husband and it had nothing to do with me. It would be fair enough, actually._

_I never imagined that it would last. In my head it was clear that I would simply try but I got satisfied of it, of our encounters; feeling her skin shivering against mine. _

_And if at some point I began to wonder about dates and years, now I have stopped counting anything. It might mean to be endless, secretively ours behind the heavy doors of some safe palace._

_A six-year affair with a woman whose body I could recognize in the dark but for whom I would not be able to order her favorite wine. It surely has its advantages and yet the silence surrounding us isn't a wall of ice. We talk, from time to time._


	2. One Thousand a Night

**One Thousand a Night**

She paid in cash, always. Not that anyone would ever check the receipts of her credit card but when she had showed up at the hotel for the very first time to pay the note, she had tended bills with such a logic that it had turned into some sort of tradition after a while.

Actually, every single action was calculated and responding thus to a series of implicit rules they both followed with an impressive meticulousness; as if they did care about a certain order of things when all they did was breaking down the balance of their respective existences. She let him go away first, had a shower before finally heading to the reception to bring the pass back. And pay.

Five hundred for a few hours. One thousand for the night.

"Do you have cash?"

Her sudden question put an abrupt end to the comings and goings of his fingertip from her buttocks to her lower back as she leaned up on her elbows then turned her head around to look at him properly, in the eyes.

"How much do you need?"

"I don't know, three or four hundred."

She might have had no idea about his personal life, some hints had nonetheless led her to conclusions that seemed obvious now, after all these years; endless encounters.

He cared about his hair, a lot. His nails were perfect as well and he had never asked her for a cigarette. He probably had a very healthy diet, hit the gym a couple of times a week _ perhaps when they didn't see each other _ and according to his Italian costumes, leather shoes and matching briefcase, she could say that he had money as well. Not necessarily as much as she did but still, his paycheck allowed him to buy expensive items.

That's why his perplexed if not astonished look surprised her when she asked him for cash. Seconds of an incredibly loud silence floated above their heads until he simply burst out laughing, amused by the incongruity of her request.

"I might be able to make it to seventy-five but that is all... I never have such an amount of cash on me. Sorry, Kare."

Nobody had ever called her like that but him. He had come up with the nickname one day, without any warning while undressing and telling her about some cab driver stuck in the usual Manhattan traffic. It had sounded natural, sliding along with a troubling fluidity and if it had taken her aback for a while, it now was part of the details that pushed her into his arms.

"Shit. Then I need to withdraw money. I will be right back."

Standing up, she walked to the armchair where she had abandoned her clothes a couple of hours earlier and not giving a damn about her complete nakedness, grabbed her coat before staring at him with what looked like awkward apologies.

"I need to do it now. I am sure that I will forget tomorrow. With the check-out and all, we are always in a hurry and I don't want to pay with my credit card."

The fabric of her trench coat made her shiver as it touched her bare skin and she buttoned it to a strict minimum.

"Is this because of your husband?"

"Oh no... It is just that I am used to paying in cash. I know the prices and always make sure to have the right amount on me but I got busy with some improbable twist today and I forgot. He doesn't give a damn about the way I spend my money."

She tightened the belt around her waist then smiled at him; put her stilettos on, winning a few inches. If they didn't talk about their private lives, some details couldn't be denied like her husband part. From the very beginning she had assumed her married status and kept her wedding band on so the allusion to the man whom she had said yes to once seemed rather normal as long as it remained vague, blurry.

Will didn't know his name or his job and completely ignored the fact that he had had children from a previous union.

_Always the main lines_

_Never give information you might regret at some point_

This could have been the rule number one.

"An improbable twist?"

"Yes, and from my husband as a matter of fact."

She grabbed her bag and looked for her credit card but the usual mess _ a mix of papers, receipts and makeup items _ made the task rather hard.

"What happened?"

She found her American Express stuck into the pages of the last publication of Vogue, the one she had leafed through during her limousine ride to the hotel a few hours before. She slid the plastic card in her pocket, looked back at him.

"He suggested me to find a job."

She knew that he worked, just ignored the sector but according to his clothes and the leather briefcase, her fantasies pushed her to think that he might have been in business even though he hadn't interacted with her own husband's company. For her part, she hadn't told him anything but it seemed so logical at the end that she couldn't but be a simple, trophy wife; a high maintenance one.

"Are you facing financial issues?"

Her laughter resounded loud, warm against the walls.

"Honey, I pay for this suite one thousand a night; eventually five hundred if our schedules are too tight. We see each other twice a week and it has been like that for six years now. Do you really think that I would come here in the first place if I couldn't afford it?"

"Then what is it?"

"Oh what I know... Something to do with making contact with the real world and blah blah blah."

She had already turned on her heels and obviously closed the conversation when his voice stopped her right away.

"Then I might have a plan."


	3. Led by Curiosity

**Led by Curiosity**

_Side One:_

_Within the five minutes that followed, I learned a lot more about him than what I had got to know until then; through this full six-year affair. He told me about Grace, how they were close friends. I wondered if they had slept together _ at least once _ even though he had added that she lived with some other guy whose name never stuck to my mind. Why not, after all? I slept with him so who could tell me he hadn't done the same with her at some point? It didn't seem impossible. _

_I should have declined, not even let him think that I was interested. _

_Obviously it meant that we would break it all down, all this mystery we had insisted to keep alive for so long. But the years passing by had also weakened our determination and it might have been the matter of a too strong temptation. Sleeping with someone you barely know is exciting, terribly arousing. But if you happen to see this person regularly, it turns rather frustrating and your curiosity grows along until you can't hold it any longer and then you succumb. _

_That's what we did._

_I went to withdraw money with the certainty I wouldn't call her, wouldn't stop by her office and apply to be her assistant. I had graduated from Harvard, besides. If I really wanted to find a job then I had qualifications susceptible to open a lot more doors to me. So I buried the idea, went back to the suite and spent the rest of the night with him. There is nothing like sex to make you forget about a couple of incongruous things. It worked rather well. _

_We left the next morning and this is when it happened, boiling inside of me; like a sort of irrepressible desire to see what she looked like now he had told me about her and how important she was in his life._

_It was as if by telling me about the job, he had set off the whole machine I had tried to restrain since the very beginning and now I just couldn't control it anymore. _

_I called her later that day, after a few hours of doubts; indecision._

_With some apprehension I showed up at her office in the afternoon and spent most of my time observing her, trying to understand why Will liked her so much, why he slept with me. Grace and I had nothing in common, there was no logic in his choices. _

_I screwed up the interview _ rather on purpose _ but for some reason she still decided to hire me and if it hadn't been for the thousandth argument I had with Stanley afterward, I wouldn't have accepted. But the atmosphere at the mansion was getting oppressive so this steady job appeared like a good escape to me. _

_Side Two:_

_If she accepted the job, we would see each other more often and would logically learn a lot more about each other as well. But maybe it was time for us to change the rules of the game and it represented an excellent opportunity to do so. It went beyond curiosity for me, more a sort of necessity to know who she actually could be. _

_Once I had almost stalked her when she had stepped out of the hotel and begun to walk in the street. As expected she had turned up on Fifth but while reaching the intersection with East 59th, I had stopped and turned around, giving up the idea. _

_I stick to rules, respect them and think that if there are some then there is obviously a reason to it. I am not some sort of rebel. This affair is the craziest thing I have ever done, to be honest. I still don't get how I could accept to go into it. _

_She didn't call me to tell me that she had got hired. Grace stopped by in the evening, asked me a few questions about her before breaking the news with some relief, yet curiosity about a woman she hadn't heard about until now but I still introduced as a very good client's wife. The impression Karen had left was obviously as confusing as all the rest for Grace. She had been rather distant if not completely detached from the interview as if she didn't care that much in the end. But she had an excellent address book to say the least and that could definitely help. _

_Without knowing it Grace had hired Karen to use her just as Karen had done with me six years before. Ironical, isn't it?_

_For the first time I had the feeling that both sides of my life were finally about to clutch together to just make one. The result would be unbalanced _ completely awkward _ but by then I assumed that it would make it all easier somehow. _

_I went to bed that night thinking about her. It didn't happen that much, actually. Karen belonged to my two extra days in the week and outside of the hotel suite, she ceased to be in my mind until our next encounter. But since the situation seemed about to change, my brain rushed on the occasion to adapt to the new shades, the new perspectives it offered. _

_I dreamed that we had sex on her desk, roughly like in those days when you could see that she couldn't hold her anger very well and she let go of everything. My fingertips ran up her spine as she moved on my lap, her breasts brushing my chest while her breath came to die in my neck. And the exciting idea that someone might walk in on us at some point..._

_But the next morning as we were about to leave for work, Grace offered me to stop by her office around noon so we could have lunch together. I declined, stepped away from the idea to cross Karen there. As if the night had stolen the excitement the idea of her hiring had stirred up in the first place, now the situation required a time of adaptation. _

_This is when I had doubts and thought that maybe, I shouldn't have told her about anything._


	4. Skin to Skin

**Skin to Skin**

Her stilettos resounded loud on the hardwood floor as she left the junk room behind and stepped back into the office; her eyes staring at her shoes intently. She stopped by the coffee machine, looked up and let a few seconds pass by before a smile grew on her lips.

"She isn't here."

Three days. It had taken Will three days to stop by the office since she had started working there. She had waited for nothing but this moment _ as awkward as it might be _ when for the very first time in their six years of relationship, they would meet somewhere else than at a restaurant or a hotel suite.

"I know."

Nonchalantly Will abandoned his briefcase on the floor by her desk then observed her from head to toe, meticulously enough.

"New dress?"

"Yes and if you could help me with the zipper... I wanted to try it but I can't get to zip it up properly."

She slightly turned on her heels to offer him her bare back; stared at her reflection in the little mirror hung on the wall. As his fingers made contact with her skin, she swallowed hard but remained focused on the image sent back of her, with Will standing behind.

His hand slid inside her dress, caressed her lower back and traveled on her stomach as his lips traced a path on her neck. She rolled her eyes, amused by the typical action this kind of request always set off at the end.

"Not here, honey. Can't you just wait for this evening?"

"Hmm..."

But as his fingertips made contact with her breasts, she abdicated and closed her eyes; leaning her head backwards against his shoulder. His inner thigh was warm on her hip. She arched her back then brushed his leg with her knee.

She knew that it would happen, that as soon as they would be left alone together they would go straight to each other; rather roughly. After all there was nothing more common for them. Having sex was the logic of every single one of their encounters. It had turned into an odd habit.

"The door..."

"It is closed."

"The elevator..."

"It is okay."

A whirl of excuses tried to make it to her mind but they almost immediately died under Will's remarks. For some reason the idea of having sex there made her feel bad. She didn't like it at all. But Will knew her body by heart, the mere inch of skin to brush and kiss so she forgot about everything. It worked one more time and very soon she found herself caressing him through his pants, her back still turned at him under the silent sighs escaping through her lips.

His fingers had just reached her thong to take it off _ pushing her to bend over for some suggestive and yet favorite positions _ when the metallic sound of the elevator mechanism resounded loud in the office, putting an abrupt end to the effusion of their senses.

"Damn!"

Will finally zipped her dress up then headed to the open window to get some fresh air as she remained in front of the mirror to adjust her hair. She still could feel his lips on her neck, their warmth against her skin. How come such a bare contact could be so arousing?

"Hey... Glad to see you here."

Grace's smile grew wider as she noticed Will vaguely leaned on her desk, arms crossed on his chest as if nothing had happened. Taking advantage of a random coffee mug to refill, Karen observed them both in the mirror; the gazes they exchanged, their complicity.

It was the first time she saw them together, after long hours of fantasizing about it. She had only been working there for three days but against all expectations, she hadn't learned a lot about Will and Grace's relation. No allusion whatsoever, he hadn't showed up...Perhaps now the moment had finally come.

"Did you stop to say hi to Karen? Unless it is for professional purposes... Well, actually I shouldn't be here. I have just forgotten a couple of sketches. Weren't you supposed to see a client for his defense on Wednesday?"

"The trial has been delayed so I don't need to be at the courthouse before next Monday."

Mug of coffee in hand, Karen finally turned around but remained by the table trying to analyze the new information she had just been given about the man she used to see by night. It hadn't crossed her mind that he could be a lawyer even though now that she knew, it sounded obvious; logical. Will didn't look like a businessman. He had nothing to do with her husband and his colleagues.

She should have known better and come to the conclusion that he was indeed an attorney.

"Good, does that mean we can go to the movies tonight?"

"Well, actually I can't. I am having dinner with another client, a very important one. It might take quite a long time."

He lied very well and somehow it hurt her heart to finally witness such a scene. At least during those previous six years, Karen had kept her distance with the dark side of their relationship. It was harsh to see it all, so suddenly.

"Oh come on, Will. Have a break... You are constantly plunged in some new case, some important file. Enjoy your life, for once!"

Turning to Karen, Grace rolled her eyes as if looking for some feminine support in her diatribe against Will. A bit uncomfortable before the scene, Karen smiled timidly then pretended to have a sip of some tasteless coffee.

But barely noticing the gesture, Grace turned back to Will and shook her head at him.

"Since you broke up with Michael, you haven't been on a single date. Don't you think it might be time now? It has been a while."

Karen's smile froze instantly. She swallowed hard.


	5. Don't Stick to Appearances

**Don't Stick to Appearances**

_Side one:_

_I didn't have to keep on smiling very long because they both left the office within a minute and I stayed there, blank and astonished._

_It hadn't crossed my mind, let's face it. We had met six years earlier basing everything on purely sexual purposes. How could I have guessed that among his dates were men, and not mere one-night stands or Grace wouldn't have bothered to mention them? Obviously I had jumped to conclusions too quickly or just stuck to fragile appearances. But still... _

_The seconds were passing by and with them all these memories I had accumulated through the years. I couldn't imagine him into a homosexual relationship. It didn't fit the scene, even less the person I knew unless the problem laid there, had always done: I had no idea who Will might have actually been._

_The rest of the afternoon seemed to disappear into a fog of incertitude, a whirl of doubts and unsteady wonders before which I couldn't manage to find any satisfying answer. Then I left around five, still lost and haunted by Grace's words. _

_I didn't go back home and headed instead straight to the hotel where I was supposed to see him a few hours later. For a long moment I remained at the bar, clutched to a glass of vodka but the alcohol did not change the slightest thing _ did not do the trick for once _ and with apprehension, I finally made it to the suite, a bit resigned._

_I took my shoes off and automatically began to unbutton my shirt but all of a sudden I stopped and sat down on a sofa instead. I waited for him there _ in the dark _ while the lights of Manhattan began to pierce through the windows, coming to die on a warm caress over the furniture; the expensive carpets. I didn't realize it immediately but my heart was pounding loud, too fast. _

_I don't know for how long I stayed there staring at the door intently while a thousand questions were twirling around in my mind producing thus an odd cacophony of doubts but once he arrived, this odd thing happened. You know, all these conversations you have throughout your life and that for some reason, you will never forget as if they had got engraved on your heart._

"_What are you doing in the dark? Why haven't you turned the lights on?"_

_The lights of the corridor seemed to embrace his figure in a dark gesture and I couldn't make out his face properly. But his voice, this tone I had learned to recognize even in its deepest whispers... He was not fine, and sounded worried. _

_So I stood up and went for him in the dark as he closed back the door behind him. I looked for his eyes, frowned. Had he ever really slept with a man? The question burnt my lips but as I took a deep breath to let the words come out, they suddenly vanished somewhere in between. _

"_Undress me."_

_Side two:_

_She didn't dare to ask. Cowardly enough, just as I had run away from Grace's office a few hours earlier when Michael had been mentioned. It might have taken me a while to assume who I was, by then I was doing alright with my past, my sexual preferences. But the circumstances were quite singular and she shouldn't have learned it this way around. _

_Yet it was an aspect of my life supposed to remain in the dark but by crossing the lines of our safe, cozy hotel suite, this kind of situation would have come up at some point anyway. I just hadn't imagined it would go that fast, with such awkwardness, such a lack of tact. _

_I had spent the rest of the afternoon elaborating scenarios about her reaction. Sometimes she got mad, others curiosity only won over the rest and she kept on asking me questions with an obvious discomfort if not embarrassment but at no moment I imagined that she wouldn't say the slightest thing._

_Was it timidity or a sentiment of fairness? After all, we were allowed to do whatever we wanted outside the hotel so could she really blame me for my same-sex relationships? _

_But she is so impulsive that I had discarded this eventuality immediately._

_She let me lead for once, though, when she usually preferred to dominate our encounters. I undressed her _ in the dark _ kissed her skin before making of her body mine. Perhaps she needed to be reassured even though she hadn't said anything out loud. _

_I could have insisted on Michael but it would only have resulted into pointless justifications that we did not really need at the end._

_Six years had taken us into a prohibited sphere of some routine that all of a sudden a detail in our lives was making explode into a thousand pieces. We just needed time perhaps to adapt to the whole thing, this new situation that would put the light on a lot of aspects we had desperately tried to hide._

_In the meantime she kept on moaning against me, sighing in the depths of my neck, swallowing hard as her sensations increased. _

_She couldn't stay for the whole night; not twice a week anyway. Finding an alibi would have been hard. _

_Glass of Martini in hand, she observed me from the bed as I got dressed in front of her, quietly enough. I put my coat on, tied my scarf around my neck and was about to leave the room when she abandoned her drink on the nightstand to sit up on her knees _ the sheets tuck under her arms to prevent her from appearing completely naked _ then reached my waist._

_She planted a kiss on my cheek then smirked._

"_See you later, Wilma."_

_She had never called me like that. _

_This is when she decided to start._


	6. The Life Outside of the Hotel

**The Life Outside of the Hotel**

She arched her back and felt how a drop of water slide along her spine before coming to die in the full curves of her hip. The touch was light but resulted enough to make her shiver and she swallowed hard, tightening her grip on Will. She loved the way his lips always brushed her skin _ through a stolen kiss _ then finally parted so his tongue began to trace circles on sensitive spots. It drove her crazy and she could not but succumb to the bold caress within a second.

A hand on his nape, the other one traveled down to his lower back. Her fingertips brushed his buttocks. She smiled as he kissed her throat then pushed him close to her with an obvious impatience, feeling his arousing against her own body.

She finally found back his mouth and in a deep kiss let him lift her up before squeezing his waist with her legs; the warmth of his own skin in hers. She always thought about this moment as a burning fusion of senses, a relief after an agony of caresses that had pushed her desires almost too far; on the verge to leave her frustrated.

Her breath shortened. She sighed in his mouth then frowned as he began his thrusts under the hot water of the shower. His lips never broke contact with her skin by then. He seemed to love her neck, her jaw and shoulder blades when she vaguely responded by light kisses on his forehead, his temples; her hand through his hair.

Meeting his thrusts, she implicitly asked him to speed up the pace as a boiling wave of warmness was already showing in her lower stomach.

If with most of her partners she had always lacked time, with Will it resulted to be the exact opposite. She restrained it all until she couldn't anymore, not necessarily to look for a perfect synchronization but just to get some pleasure a bit longer; and feel him so close to her.

His fingertips brushed her breasts and she bit her lower lip, arching her back in a last movement as she finally let go of everything in a long, quiet sigh against his ear.

They shared the shower _ breathless and still a bit sleepy after a whole night spent at the suite _ then got dressed before leaving in a hurry. The first hours of the morning were already far behind and they were running late to their respective workplaces.

She still managed to highlight her entrance when passing the door of Grace's office, sunglasses on as if to pretend she was important when she simply lacked sleep but that way around it fit better the role she had started playing. If she had been asked about it, she wouldn't have been able to give any explanation susceptible to satisfy her interviewer. It had come up by itself after a couple of days at work, after the allusion to Michael.

And then there was this constant teasing towards Will. She couldn't help it. He had simply accepted to play along, perhaps feeling a bit guilty over a few things.

If Stanley had seen her there, he wouldn't have recognized her and probably asked her what was going on. She wasn't the woman he had married some years earlier, the wife he found back home every night or so even if only for a few seconds. But their union was so broken that even her behavior during one of their socialite parties passed completely unnoticed to him.

And it hurt somehow. It hurt not to be seen.

So she overplayed it all, always exaggerated then let people think that it was the person she could be.

The days were passing by, doing the trick most of the times.

…

"Poker at Will's tonight, are you tempted?"

She plunged her eyes in Jack's blue ones then pouted, obviously unsure. Will hadn't invited her to his place, not even mentioned the idea to do so any time soon and if at some point she would have been eagerly curious to see his apartment, the little fiasco over his sexual preferences had slowed down her enthusiasm to get to know him.

Jack's exuberance had charmed her immediately as they had met a couple of days earlier, right after the morning she had arrived late for having been with Will for a torrid morning shower at their hotel suite. But if the only presence of Grace at the office until now had clearly put the light on a lot of details she hadn't expected, her sudden closeness to Jack brought even more about her lover's life and perhaps too quickly.

"Oh please, come on... It is going to be boring without you!"

Jack's misunderstanding over her hesitation didn't help at all and she abandoned her desk to pour some coffee in a mug; added whiskey to it.

"Why of course it will! Why do you think Will belongs to Gracie? They both have such a boring and pointless personality."

She accepted the invitation, imagining that Will would send her a message to ask her not to come or something. He didn't though and a few hours later she found herself passing the door of an apartment she had never really fantasized about in her head. It might have sounded odd but for her Will only had a life inside of the hotel, just like the characters of a movie that purely existed within the borders of the fiction they were in. Once outside, Will ceased to be.

Or at least until then as he opened the door to her and pretended not to care that much about her at the end.

Grace was sat on the couch. Jack was pouring himself a glass of orange juice in the kitchen area. The place was small but cozy enough.

And for a few seconds Karen wished nothing but her life looking that good outside of their hotel suite. Not that she felt jealousy but a mere realization that her existence was in complete ruins and not his, when she had assumed that they were going through identical schemes.


	7. A Birthday Wish

**A Birthday Wish**

_Side one:_

_I had never paid him, never offered him money in exchange of sexual intercourse. I did book the suite and was in charge of the note but it was logically enough. After all, I had published the ad. I was the one who had started it all. He had come up by himself, pushed by a reason I definitely didn't get now that I was finding out about his life with Jack and Grace. But still, if I hadn't forced him, there must have been something about me._

_This is a very odd feeling that learning the person you have been sleeping with for almost a decade is supposed to prefer the other sex, that you shouldn't even have entered in consideration at any moment. Not that it makes you doubt about yourself but... Nothing makes sense anymore and the lines between the truth and the lies turn blurry, more and more. _

_Perhaps I should have told him about my incomprehension, how blank it left me. But I didn't get it. As soon as we happened to be alone, I just went for his body then put all the rest aside if not forget about it. _

_Every day would bring up something I had never imagined about him. A detail for most of the people but a real, dropped bomb for me. And yet there was this way they let me enter their inner-circle, their little private sphere. I had never experienced this before and for the first time, I felt like I belonged to somewhere, to someone. _

_He wasn't gay to me, would never be. How would you have been able to explain the past six years if so, hmm? It was just impossible. I could have been some sort of curiosity but then he would have put an end to it right after our first encounter then never asked for more; never resulted eager to try some new things. It wasn't that I needed to convince myself but still, it was reassuring._

_The first time we met was the day previous of his birthday. I had never known this until Grace alluded to the date and I ended up being invited. Now I wonder if he ever made some kind of connection, at any moment; if both were related somehow, whether the upcoming celebration pushed him to reply to my ad._

_Not that a year more in our affair was a cause of celebration but we still went to the restaurant before going back to the suite that day. Once a year we allowed ourselves a meal out in public even though it never ended up in some proper conversation about anything but random topics._

_I don't know if it happened to be the result of the last changes in our situation _ Grace hiring me _ but when we sat down at our table at this tiny Italian restaurant, the words suddenly came out and we didn't stop speaking as if all the previous years had finally fought against our restrained desires and we were catching back on time. The next day we would pretend that it hadn't happened, that nothing had ever happened. It might have been an odd routine but for being ours, I liked it more than anything._

_Side two:_

_This constant teasing was probably the most arousing foreplay we had ever had. I loved it, loved the way she gave me this mock when her eyes meant the exact opposite; almost a quiet apology over the words she had been using. She is bewitching. As soon as she entered a room, you can't but look at her then be mesmerized by the power emanating from her. It might go on your nerves but still, she got you in her claws and you can't resist that much._

_I asked her to stay. Jack had retreated to his apartment and Grace had gone to bed after some sort of fiasco birthday, for a change... We ended up being left alone in the living-room, sat on the sofa; a glass of champagne in hand. Nothing happened there. We kept on talking for a while _ as if still carried on by whatever had taken place the evening before at the restaurant _ then suddenly coming from nowhere I asked her to spend the night at my place. _

_My request took her aback and for a few seconds, she looked down at her lap; obviously embarrassed. But I never regretted my question, at no moment. _

"_Okay..."_

_The way her voice sounded low and insecure still haunts me now. My heart was beating fast, a weight on my chest whispering to me that it was wrong and the limits we were about to cross were dangerous ones; leading too far. But she took my hand and we left the living-room, turning the lights off before passing the door of my bedroom. Grace was across the hall, only a few feet away. She could walk in on us at any moment but it didn't stop us. _

_I closed the door behind then looked at her. She had sat down on the edge of the bed, her stilettos by her side; hands on the mattress._

_Her eyes locked with mine, she unbuttoned her jacket, got rid of her black top then stood up to discard her trousers. She waited there for me, in her expensive lingerie. _

"_Come here."_

_I obeyed. She undressed me and within a few seconds, found herself unhooking her bra on top of me._

_She has a tattoo on her inner left thigh. It is a sort of snake that bites its tail and in the middle of the circle the drawing emphasized, the letter "K" appeared next to a "W". I like fantasizing about the fact she got it for her and me even if I know it isn't true since she had it before we even met. I assume it stands for her surname, the one she adopted when marrying Stanley. _

_I spent a long time kissing it that night, in the quietness of the apartment; our stifled sighs. My fingers brushed it, my lips caressed it and I fed myself of the warmth emanating from her body._

_She left around four in the morning, taking away with her an odd but memorable birthday wish._


	8. From Vermont with Snow

**From Vermont with Snow**

The snow had replaced the dreary field landscape for quite a while now, wrapping up the world into an odd immensity of a cold silence; a sort of virgin desert of whiteness that blinded the eyes and made you shiver as soon as you stared at the ground for too long. Her head pressed against the window of the car, Karen's mind seemed to have remained in New York, somewhere between Park Avenue and Madison; the very last floor of some luxurious building. The situation had worsened rather dramatically between her and Stanley lately, for a thousand reasons she couldn't even name. Perhaps this was just supposed to be the end, after all. When she had told Will about it, he had pushed her to save her marriage. It did have surprised her at the beginning but then it had seemed rather logical. If she ever divorced from Stanley, Will would feel bad at some point, as if responsible of the downfall. A six-year affair had obviously an impact on her couple _ no mattered she kept on saying the exact opposite _ and it might have put some sort of invisible pressure on it until making it break down into pieces.

So she had tried to save whatever was left of her marriage but before the growing tensions and Grace's concern about Will's approaching the date of what should have been his anniversary with Michael, she had seen in Vermont the getaway everyone seemed to need. If only for a few hours they would let it all behind and enjoy the air of the mountains, far from the stress of Manhattan.

But trapped in the rented car, next to Will who was driving and humming a tune along, it didn't work at all and she felt like crying.

After another hour and a couple of indications, they finally arrived to the cabin. She came rather often with Stanley, technically for a rest though he always spent his weekend working over the phone or on the web with some colleagues remained in New York. She got bored alone there, far from the city. She didn't like skiing, didn't know the place enough to go for a walk so after pacing the living-room pointlessly, she grabbed a bottle of whiskey and sat down by the fireplace until her thoughts became too blurry to even sound like a problem.

Her usual boredom didn't kick in this time. As a matter of fact, the cabin seemed to finally get to life, thanks to the presence of those three people she considered now as her closest friends; no mattered she would never confess it to them.

…

"I thought that you would be asleep by now."

She didn't jump at the sound of his voice in her back, didn't tighten her grip on her glass of vodka either but simply smiled quietly; her eyes staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace. Everyone had gone to bed for quite a while now but after long minutes of an odd melancholy, she had stepped out of her room and came to sit down on the hardwood floor of the living-room.

Perhaps observing the fireplace on had become a sort of routine, after all; an activity she had learned to enjoy in spite of Stanley's lack of communication that alwyas pushed her to end that way, by herself near the flames.

"I am afraid that my dreams will be too bitter if I close my eyes, tonight... And you?"

She finally looked at him as he sat down by her side and grabbed a glass to pour vodka in it.

"I don't know."

They cheered to nothing in particular then took a sip of their drinks before staring at the fireplace with a disturbing intensity. They had seen each other twice that week _ as usual _ but never alluded to the weekend they would spend together, the very first one actually. It might not have belonged to their sex encounters but still, they would share forty-eight hours in a row of their lives when it hadn't happened before; at no moment.

It brought an odd perspective to their affair, a nonetheless exciting one if they had had to be honest.

"Were you in love with Michael?"

"Yes, I was."

If her question surprised him then he didn't show anything and replied nonchalantly before taking a sip of his drink. They had never talked about Michael, never alluded to him but for whatever reason, she had brought it up; rather suddenly.

"Then why did you stay with me if you happened to have romantic feelings for him?"

"Because you are addicting."

Without any warning he captured her lips in a long, sensual kiss as his hand cupped her face; his thumb caressing her temple softly. Taken aback, her gasp came to die in his mouth. The touch was warm, full of an awkward delicacy that seemed to appear from nowhere.

She slowly put her glass down on the floor then allowed him access to settle down between her legs as he moved forward, his fingers brushing her skin underneath her black woolen sweater. The contact sent a shiver down her spine, a moan to her lips and she smiled in his mouth before a sudden boldness he didn't always have.

She let him do as he pushed her to lie on the floor, a hand on her hip while his lips were now tracing a path of kisses on her throat. Her bare foot caressed his legs, her knee pressed against his waist as she ventured a hand underneath his shirt.

"Not here..."

Her whisper resounded too loud but as she opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling _ the staircase that led to the first floor _ she pushed him away then sat up before retrieving her glass to put it down on the coffee table behind him.

Quietly enough they went upstairs to his room then found back each other's lips eagerly as they closed the door and made their way to the bed. With impatience she discarded his shirt then lay on the mattress, waiting for him to undress her.

His lips brushed her lower stomach as his fingers unzipped her pants.

Someone knocked on the door, making them jump in surprise. She let him go for it, hiding herself under the blanket in the dark. She recognized Grace's voice, whispering some sort of apology.

But it didn't take that long before she found back the warmth of Will's arms.


	9. Too Many Tequila Shots

**Too Many Tequila Shots**

_Side one:_

_Of course I noticed it. Every single gaze _ the smallest detail _ or even a simple remark was enough to highlight the fact that the situation was evolving, changing within us. _

_Oddly enough, at no moment I had imagined that it would; neither when Will had told me about the job or Grace had decided to hire me. Perhaps I had been seduced by the false reflection sent back by these six years we had spent in the dark and I had got reassured by the idea that if our pact had made it for so long then nothing would ever reach it. _

_Obviously I was wrong but I nonetheless kept on ignoring it all. _

_After Vermont, the hotel suite became an option, ceasing thus to be the requirement of our beginnings. I stopped counting the nights I spent leaving his place on my tiptoes, hoping that Grace wouldn't wake up and even less notice my lips swollen by his kisses; my hair a bit messy and this light in the eyes that one has when emerging from the exhilaration of a couple of feelings. _

_The only forbidden place was my own apartment, the very last symbol left over my marriage. Not that Stanley would have minded... We had stopped arguing for a while, only to get it all replaced by an odd indifference, a very bitter one. And before noticing it, I was barely spending two nights home a week._

_But this is when I started feeling bad, when a weight began to oppress my chest. Guilt had finally made it to my mind, traveling up my blood before poisoning my veins. _

_I shouldn't have accepted Grace's invitation to have one of those "girl nights" _ not after what I was doing in her back _ but in a moment of confusion I found myself nodding and before realizing anything I was sitting down on the couch where the previous night I had eagerly kissed Will._

_We drank too much. For it being the very first time I had ever been invited to spend the night over on pure friendship purposes, I guess I let go of everything and kept on emptying shot after shot. Alcohol stopped burning my throat after a short while but the soft blurriness it brought to my life rocked me to peace and I went for more Tequila. We began to talk and carried on by the boldness of our intoxication, I ended up confessing Grace that I had a lover. _

_I told her everything, from my twice-a-week encounters to his ambiguous sexuality; the six years of the affair. The words were coming out with such a relief and such an easiness that my cheeks were burning and my eyes shining. For once I had someone to share my heaviest secret with; someone I cared about a lot, unexpectedly._

_Side two:_

_When I arrived to the coffee shop, she was sat at a table playing with her pack of cigarettes nervously. Her features were deep. She looked tired but most of all panicked. Just like the message she had left on my cell phone a few hours earlier. _

_I remember the traffic noise in the background and her short breath as she had mentioned a mistake she had made and how urgent it was that we got to speak; that she would wait for me on Times Square. She had never sounded so desperate, so lost and extremely fragile but for some reason I had remained calm as if I still believed in the untouchable character of our affair. _

_Obviously she had stopped to, and rather suddenly._

"_I talked to Grace last night. I told her everything but your name. I was tipsy... I am sorry."_

_Karen doesn't apologize very often. It seems like the word in itself scares her, drags her down as if it got the taste of failure all along. Instead, she looks at you for a few seconds _ quiet _ then turns the page with an awkward subtlety. Some people don't understand it but that is because they only stick to appearances. If I had done that, I would have gone away a long time ago; would have never made it through a single year with her._

"_You were both drunk. I am sure that Grace doesn't remember the slightest thing."_

"_How can you be so sure of yourself? You weren't even there..."_

"_She would have called me or asked you for some more details if it were still bright in her head. I know Grace. I know how she works and reacts. Silence has never been part of her persona. She is impulsive, and rather jealous when it comes to me. Well, no... Not jealous but possessive. And protective."_

_She gave me a smile but I knew that I hadn't reassured her at all. Her complexion was very pale, and she looked anxious. _

"_I just don't want to put an end to anything. I just don't want to hurt Grace. I can't afford to ruin it all between the two of you. Between her and I..."_

_I brushed her hand but she took it away immediately then looked around, trying to be sure that nobody had witnessed my sweet attempt. _

"_Perhaps we should stick to the hotel suite, be more careful about everything."_

_I simply nodded, not knowing what to say or what to add about it. But when I locked my eyes with hers, the glimmering light of tears in her hazel gaze took me aback. Perhaps she was just tired and had some headache due to her hangover from the night before..._

_Unless she was just sad, incredibly sad. _


	10. Six Years of Novelty

**Six Years of Novelty**

The moment she abandoned her stiletto on the floor and began to caress his leg with her foot, she knew what would happen next; no mattered the pact they had made a few weeks earlier on Times Square, all these resolutions that seemed to have suddenly disappeared in the air. Her tiptoes brushed his thigh then came to rest there, close to the zipper of his pants, as she locked her eyes with his and let a mischievous smile light up her face.

She wanted him. It couldn't be any simpler, any more basic. Her fingers were dying for the warmth of his skin, her lips waiting eagerly for his and the long, deep kisses they always shared. There were days like this one when for whatever reason the temptation seemed too hard and if the occasion happened to present itself, she couldn't miss it out.

Without breaking eye-contact, she unbuttoned her jacket before slowly moving her foot over the zipper of his pants. She felt him get tensed under the touch, perhaps taken by surprise. From all the places they had had sex in, Grace's office had still remained a virgin territory where they had barely kissed and lost themselves in the premises of foreplay once. But for Grace being in Denver for a week to attend some convention for interior designers, the limits had became a lot more blurry all of a sudden.

Her foot began to massage him through his pants but obviously the previous path she had traced on his leg had resulted arousing enough to jump to the next stage. She was about to leave her desk to sat down on his lap when he grabbed her ankle and planted kisses all the way up to her knee. His fingers finally made contact with her skin as he went underneath her skirt and put down her stocking.

His lips brushed her inner thigh. She closed her eyes, arched her back to him and passed a hand through his hair to get him closer to her body. A few seconds later she was laying down on her desk, letting him get rid of her thong before resting her legs on his shoulders while feelings his kisses getting closer and closer to the most sensitive part of her body.

She gasped under the sudden contact, as she felt his tongue on her flesh and the warmth of his breath coming by successive waves of a boiling sensation.

As much as they had met in the first place for pure sexual purposes, they had never crossed the lines to go into pornography. They didn't want to experience anything special, simply have sex like any other couple except their relation ended up once out of bed.

Oral sex had turned into such a recurrence during their first-year encounters though that little by little, they had abandoned it for some more chaste foreplay _ a lot of caresses, a thousand kisses _ and made of those bolder acts a precious rarity they enjoyed at the most when happening, once in a while.

Just as she was now.

Her breath had shortened for long seconds now as she was trying to control the strong feeling boiling in her lower stomach, arching her back; biting her lower lip as if restraining sighs of pleasure would make it last.

"I want you now."

Perhaps because of the peculiar nature of their relationship, she dared to mention her own desires a lot more easily with Will than she had done with any of her previous lovers. Their lack of commitment seemed to help her timidity to fade away then get replaced by a brand new boldness.

Swallowing hard, she tried to catch up her breath as Will's mouth finally went away from her and he stood up, taking off his pants and boxers. His hands grabbed her legs and she relaxed under the touch, looked for his eyes as she felt his arousing brush her own flesh.

She usually preferred a full contact with his body, something a lot closer; more intimate. But against all expectations, his thrusts and hands on her legs resulted enough to arouse her; and his eyes, locked with hers all along. The distance seemed to bring something new all of a sudden, as if the previous six years hadn't closed the door to any novelty and every time was different, would always be.

Getting close to a point of no return, she squeezed his waist tighter _ pushing on his buttocks _ to feel him deeper, with more intensity as if the fusion of their bodies was complete.

As a teenager _ because of all the scenes she kept on watching in movies _ she had thought that lovers always shared a simultaneous orgasm. Then her own experience with her first lovers had troubled her, if not disappointed her for not matching the idea she had got of love making. She had never found any synchronicity with her partners, just learned to accept it as realizing it was the way things went most of the time anyway. But still, she had kept on fantasizing about it, about the symbol it reached as if two people's subconscious agreed in silence with releasing oxytocin at the same time, to get this supreme pleasure together in a pure fusion.

It took her by surprise and came to die in a gasp as for the very first time she finally reached her old teenage fantasy. At thirty-nine years old, after three marriages and a six-year affair.

They reached the perfect timing together, this connection she had lusted for and yet resigned herself about after so many years without getting even close to it, within a few seconds. But for the delicacy of the position they found themselves in as well as the place where someone could walk in at any moment they quickly put an end to their final fusion.

Very silent she sat up and retrieved for her thong, put it back as Will did as well with his boxers and pants. But as she was about to head to the mirror in order to adjust her messy hair, she stopped then turned on her heels before capturing his mouth in a long, honest kiss.


	11. About Rushing into Things

**About Rushing into Things**

_Side one:_

"_I am late."_

"_For what?"_

"_My period."_

_The words had resounded loud and cold in the hotel suite, taking away the end of the evening in a whirl of uncertainty. I remained there sat on the bed and observing the wall intently unable as I was to face him. Long seconds passed by, one of those that seem to last for a very long while if not for the eternity and they are tough, so hard. _

_It had never happened to me. For years I had studied a bit perplexed at all these women who suddenly went through pregnancy scares without really understanding what it could be; what they could feel like at this moment of their lives. For some reason I had imagined that it made you feel alive, woke you up before guiding you towards the main purpose of your existence. But as the dates got mixed and I found out that I might have been pregnant, I only plunged into a lonely state of fear; a latent panic. _

"_Have you bought a test?"_

"_No."_

"_Maybe you should."_

"_I know."_

_I turned down his offer to go and buy one immediately but promised him that I would the very next day. I felt like crying, my self-confidence reduced to ashes and bringing me back to these years of my life when I was only the shadow of my own persona or at least this woman I wanted to be so bad. The one I had become, finally. Why do appearances always fall down so easily?_

_I had been on the pill since the age of sixteen and never skipped the slightest one. I had checked it all over and over but it still didn't make sense. There was no reason for me being late. _

"_What if it is positive?"_

"_I will have an abortion. Not that Stanley really minds about what I do when he isn't here but still, he will know right away that this child isn't his and I can't do that to him."_

_For six years Will had ignored my life outside of the hotel, if I had children or not. Now that he knew a bit more about it, the question of maternity remained a blurry one to him. _

_I think that the quickness with which I replied shocked him even though he didn't say it. My tone of voice had been extremely calm and determined as if I had thought about it a thousand times yet and it was all deprived of any special feeling. Perhaps I had finally become the heartless bitch I pretended to be._

"_You don't want to have children?"_

"_Oh please, look at me. Do you really picture me out with a family of my own?"_

_But I didn't leave him time to reply. Instead a fake, bitter laughter came to fill the place and I shook my head at him then shrugged._

"_Don't be worried, I know that it will be negative. I shouldn't have even talked to you about it in the first place. Do me a favor and forget about it."_

_Side two:_

_Two days later she told me that it was a false alert, that the test wasn't positive. We haven't alluded to it anymore but for some reason I think she lied to me. I think she was pregnant but preferred to end it up for all the impossibilities it seemed to bring. _

_The look in her eyes had the intensity of things we have to renounce to, in spite of our inner dreams. I just didn't insist and ended up nodding, playing along the same relief she was offering to me. Perhaps I should have taken her in my arms, rocked her to sleep or something. I didn't dare. _

_This is when something changed in my life, when I realized that a few aspects of my existence belonged to a past that had faded away a long time ago but hadn't hit me before, for whatever reason. _

_Like the plan I had made with Grace about parenthood, about having a child together if we didn't find the right one at some point. We had grown apart somehow, on a level that couldn't be explained but it was obvious that we would never have this family we had thought about once. _

_I had never imagined that there would be another woman. It took me six years to realize that Karen wasn't just a mistress. She had made my life tip over _ slowly but surely enough _ and even though she lied to me about the pregnancy test, she suddenly became a very important part of me. _

_My life didn't make sense without her, as much as it might have sounded odd and unexpected._

_She was afraid of maternity and yet terribly attracted to it. But lacking the bases her childhood hadn't brought her, she probably pushed herself to think that having a child would ruin everything. It might be a little surprising for you if you never had the chance to share an intimate _ personal _ moment with her but she is very sweet, attentive. _

_She would have been a very good mother if only she had accepted to overcome her fears and to lend me an ear._

"_We can't afford to be sentimental, honey. We can't afford to be sappy. Or at some point this life will end up making you pay for it and pretty harshly."_

_A cigarette in one hand and a glass of Martini in the other, she used to let the words come out before drowning her invisible tears in the strength of her drink. Always. As if it would take away once and for all this anger for the world that boiled in her veins. But at the end she still remained there, all broken with her failed dreams._


	12. Summer Time in Your Arms

**Summer Time in Your Arms**

As his warm hand brushed hers, she slowly abandoned the contemplation of the stage to look how his fingers were intertwined with hers. The soprano's voice had wrapped up her heart in a singular veil of powerful sensations and she remained there _ troubled at the most _ before the sadness of the story told a few feet below her box and the whirl of confusion his touch had stirred up.

As much as she had tried to convince herself of the exact opposite, their evening at the opera seemed to really adopt the shades of a date; their first one if she had had to be honest. For the previous six years, they had never settled down anything outside of the hotel suite except their annual dinner to celebrate their odd anniversary. They would probably end up in bed that night though for once, they also shared other purposes.

The last months had flown away at an impressive pace as if after awkward beginnings, their new lives had finally found a reassuring balance. The period of adaptation was over and they had accepted _ little by little _ the novelty of another delicate routine. At times Karen wondered if it hadn't been a mistake, if she wouldn't end up regretting it but then she thought about the people she had met and made friends with like Jack and Grace. It always resulted enough to make her fears vanish.

But the stormy days of July had suddenly brought a wave of unexpected events, a few confrontations that had pushed Grace to move out from Will's apartment leading thus to a freedom of movements both lovers didn't know how to deal with. She could spend the whole night at his place without fearing that someone might walk in on them, without finding herself in a compromising situation. The days seemed far now when she had told him to stick to the hotel suite, at the coffee store on Times Square. And as if an invisible strength pushed them towards each other, Grace left for Montana for a family reunion and Jack went on a cruise around the islands near Cuba.

It took place on a Sunday morning as the boat left New York and they realized that they had been left alone for a large amount of time. Perhaps the sentiment that their little world was suddenly broken did the trick and they got closer, as if to reassure themselves that their loneliness brought up by the absence of their friends was only temporary then.

For a few days she spent the night at his place, enjoying the lightness of the next mornings deprived of any kind of worries. They were having a drink on his terrace when he began to talk about an evening at the opera, the eventuality of it. It only crossed her mind a bit later that by accepting it, she crossed the limits of their new bases.

She didn't turn him down, though.

"Would you like a glass of Champagne?"

The brouhaha of the intermission contrasted sharply with the silence that had reigned over during the first act and it made her feel dizzy, a bit in the way as if still in her dreams. She quietly nodded at him then waited by the door of the bar. In other circumstances, she would have been afraid to stumble upon some acquaintances but in the summer they all left the city and the only people her eyes were meeting now were tourists.

"Here is your Champagne."

"Thank you..."

They didn't talk during the twenty minutes that lasted the break, barely looked at each other and almost welcomed with a loud relief the return to their seats. It is only when they found themselves back in the street _ the warm breeze of the night caressing their faces _ that they broke the odd distance.

She kissed him, right in front of everyone in the middle of the sidewalk under the lights of Carnegie Hall. Her sudden gesture took him aback but he didn't try to push her away. As her hand slid up his arm he simply held her tight against him then accepted their first kiss in public. The embrace was chaste yet insistent, full of a surprising self-confidence she had always lacked.

They wouldn't close their eyes until the first hours of the morning when the light of the sun spread over Manhattan with an elegant nonchalance. Her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, she would observe the world waking up by the window, in silence. The sheets would be warm against her bare skin, soft enough to bring her this ounce of suavity that made it all seem right, and perfect.

They could have gone back to his place but had headed instead to the hotel, looking for old references perhaps, in a life that looked less and less what they had assimilated as habits.

"Let's go somewhere together, for a few days. By the ocean... Some place far from all the rest."

At his words, she thought about Stanley who had taken his children to Montana for the entire month. She hadn't been invited, one more time. If at some point it had hurt her, she had learned to accept with the years that she would never be part of his family; no mattered their union.

"Okay..."

The words slid on her lips and made her frown, bringing up a veil of uncertainty about it all. But she preferred to ignore it and settled closer to him instead; planted a kiss on his neck.

"Yes, let's just find something out of the city."

She had a dreamless sleep, almost blank like her mind but still confusing like her heart. When she woke up a few hours later, Will was still by her side; his eyes closed. And something didn't sound right at all.

But for whatever reason, a bright smile played on her lips.


	13. Past, Present and Regrets

**Past, Present and Regrets**

_Side one:_

_My grandfather used to say that life was a card game, some sort of cheap poker where it was all about lies and not your hand. Perhaps some times were easier than others but at the end everything was still possible until the last second. _

"_Keep on smiling, just pretend."_

_He had forgotten to tell me that as much experience as you can get, the art of lying remains within your inner-self, desperately. I was born deprived of it. That's why all these lies weighed so much on me._

_I am afraid it is a matter of circumstances, unexpected ones that wrapped us up suddenly in their cold embrace before breaking our necks without any warning. If the summer had strengthened our relation it had also turned us weak, too vulnerable before these whirls of wind. That's why it hit us hard._

_That's why we drifted apart._

_I am not proud of my past and as much as I try to get away from it, it sticks and haunts my mind with a constant vehemence as if I really had to pay for it, until my last breath. At the sound of my voice on the television screen, I wished nothing but the ground to swallow me. It seemed like a dozen of claws were tracing paths of boiling, melted metal along my heart, very slowly so the pain could be unbearable. _

_And Grace kept on smiling, as if it was only a joke when it actually reminded me how I had broken my life into pieces. _

_It was not her fault but I nonetheless panicked and rushed out of the office with an odd sensation _ oppressive _ that no mattered how hard I tried, I would always end up facing my demise for a couple of mistakes from the past. _

_An adult film for a few dollars. It was that or going back on the street selling my soul to another pimp until someone paid attention to me, until reality vanished in some blurry dreams._

_It only lasted a few days. Though obviously a singe second is enough to ruin everything. _

_Stanley never knew about it nor did my previous husbands. This is not the kind of information you are eager to share when being introduced to the high society. The years had passed by _ I hadn't heard of it _ so I assumed that it hadn't been released or in the worst case, taken out of the shelves of some creepy video store lost in the Village. But the nightmare came back to me and did it all over again._

_For two days I remained in bed wondering when the news would spread, how I would precipitate my husband's image into a downfall of shame and ridiculousness while I would feel people's murmurs on my back whenever I would go out on the street. _

_Tension got accumulated and even though Grace did an unexpected gesture towards me, I should have canceled my evening with Will. But I ran to him like we rush to a wall of bricks._

_Side two:_

_The paradoxical summer we spent together _ torn between the oddness of a growing complicity and a series of established rules that seemed further and further _ still resulted to be the most unforgettable moments I had ever lived. Nothing special happened after it, we simply got taken away by the routine we had all put into parenthesis a bit too easily. _

_But I got fired, rather unexpectedly and all of a sudden I found myself facing a life reduced to ashes. I wasn't fine, and felt terribly lonely. Perhaps she was also going through a bad patch with Stanley but we didn't talk about it, none of them ever alluded to anything. So what took place that evening was just the result of some pure logic._

_I arrived at the hotel suite exhausted, and stressed. I had helped Jack catering for a reception but the situation had turned bad and as much as I had tried to support him _ to show him that I was there for our friendship _ it only emphasized the pressure my unemployed status put on my shoulders. _

_I am not used to being inactive. I don't feel alive when I am lazy and spend the day watching pointless television shows. It is not me, just pure wasted time that gets on my nerves easily. I need to do things, rather constantly to feel like I have a reason to be. Working is a lot more than a financial support to me. It is like a second, vital breath._

_We should have canceled our night for being nervously exhausted, on the verge of some breakdown. Unless it had to happen, for whatever reason I will never be able to explain or understand._

_We argued over pointless details that little by little led to deeper wonders like the fairness of this affair _ what she was doing to Stanley when she owed him everything _ releasing thus our frustration on each other. It had nothing to do with our usual teasing games, this was pure anger coming from nowhere. _

_All I have kept in mind is the light in her eyes as she told me that there wouldn't be another time and it was now the end of whatever we had lived. _

_Her hazel gaze had stopped glimmering. _

_She left me as I realized that it was supposed to be our anniversary but none of them had thought about it, had booked the slightest table. It was probably a sign that we needed to stop it all._

_So we did._


	14. In Another Life

**In Another Life**

Things would have been different in another life; if she hadn't been married to Stanley, if he hadn't had this odd and intricate relation with Grace. Perhaps it would have worked out and they would have been happy together, walking the streets of Manhattan hand in hand until the sun vanished in the moonlight.

Perhaps...

She had never meant to put an end to their affair, at absolutely no moment. The words had come out by themselves _ pushed by her sudden anger _ but when she had tried to go back to him a couple of days later, she had realized that he had turned the page, accepted her harsh remarks.

Before his obvious distance, she hadn't dared to tell him that she didn't want to stop anything. Confused and embarrassed, she had excused herself then spent the day at home in bed; plunged in the dark. Six years of her life had suddenly flown away taking with them a thousand references and it all looked bare now, unsteady. Karen was lost without Will, as odd as it might have sounded.

"He is here!"

"Who is here, honey?"

"Michael!"

She felt how her smile got all broken on her face, how her heart sped up its pace as the rest of her body began to shake uncontrollably. Swallowing hard, she simply shrugged at Grace as if she couldn't care less; wondering though if she didn't sound too fake.

She had heard about him more times than she could actually remember though had never dared to ask Will for further details. It didn't seem appropriate if considering their very own relation. After all they hadn't known the slightest thing about each other for years _ based their affair on this point _ and it had worked out very well. And now they had broken up, she knew that by breaking the rules they had just signed for their demise.

Michael was a nice man, smart and polite. For three weeks she observed his slightest gesture, choice of words and gazes he had towards Will when both happened to be at the office. She knew now that what they had lived had never been a mere fling. And it hurt, confused her even more about Will's reasons to have not stopped their own affair when he had seemed to find true love.

In the meantime and before the blank perspective of Michael's comeback, she concentrated on Stanley. They had dinner together, went out in an attempt to reenact the complicity they had shared in their life but whenever she turned the lights off _ alone in bed _ after an evening with her husband, she still had this bitter taste in mouth; the one of regrets, of missing opportunities and misunderstandings.

She missed Will, a lot more than expected.

…

There was no sparkling in spite of her efforts. It sounded fake, forced and seemed to leave them rather frustrated at the end. But since it was all they owned from their failed marriage, she kept on smiling at Stanley in the utopian hope that things might come to a change, an unexpected one.

His text message took her out of her lethargy on a rainy Sunday afternoon, making her jump under the surprising sound of her cell phone.

_Meet me at four at the Waldorf Astoria_

_W._

Instinctively her heart began to pound faster in her chest and she stood up from the sofa of the library with a barely contained haste. She didn't say to anyone that she was going out. Stanley was working in his office and the maids couldn't care less about her comings and goings. She simply grabbed her bag, put her coat on and hailed a cab instead of requiring her limousine.

Just like in the old, good times.

Her stilettos resounded loud on the marble floor of the lobby, too much maybe so she sped up her pace and reached the lounge within a few seconds. The room was empty apart from a couple sat on a corner; probably some tourists. Her eyes studied the place and landed on Will. He had chosen the coffee table near the fireplace, surrounded by two old, leather English armchairs.

Settling in front of him, she crossed her legs and swallowed hard. They hadn't found each other alone for a very long time and the sudden face-to-face was intimidating somehow. She ordered an Irish coffee then reached for a cigarette. She needed nicotine.

"I have booked a suite for the rest of the afternoon."

"Excuse me?"

Her perplexity got suspended as the waiter brought her drink. She nodded a quiet thanks but kept her eyes on Will, completely taken aback by his words. How could he be so self-confident in spite of what they had gone through, the decisions they had taken recently?

"Let's do it all over again. Let's get a second chance."

He had got dumped by Michael. He had gone to him but Michael had turned down his offer to reenact their past because he had moved on so now he had to do as well in a ridiculous attempt to get rid of the shame such a situation had stirred up in him. But for not wanting a mere one-night stand, he had chosen her; no mattered all the rest.

She was a backup plan, a mere rebound.

For a few seconds she observed the couple of tourists on the other end of the lounge, conversing softly over a cup of coffee. They looked sweet, and cute together. Lighting her cigarette, she closed her eyes as the smoke made it to her lungs and released the dose of venom she required to calm down.

It didn't work that much, though.

At some point she thought about making him face the facts, the reason of his presence at the palace but it all stayed trapped. Besides it hurt a lot less if consciously ignored.

"Alright."

No mattered the questionable fairness of his acts, she just couldn't miss out the opportunity, not twice.


	15. Make a Wish Make a List

**Make a Wish Make a List**

_Side one:_

_I am not the person I pretend to be. As a matter of fact, I am her exact opposite._

_I am unable to separate my feelings from any kind of situation, unable to face the slightest conflict and I terribly lack self-confidence. I am shy, introverted at the most and need to be reassured as soon as I have to take a decision, even the smallest one. I haven't chosen to be that way, I was born like that and the only weapon I found _ the only shield _ to protect myself from everyone is to make you all believe I am a dreadful woman. _

_It hurts at times but the truth is that I have learned to live with it and as the years are passing by, it all softens as if the decades rock the pain to sleep. But still, it doesn't change the person I am, full of some unexpected vulnerability._

_I have always been the second choice, from Stanley to my previous husbands there is no one man who landed an eye on me first. I don't sparkle enough perhaps. I don't attract them that much. I guess they don't see me as if I got lost in the background a bit too easily. _

_Will was just another one, following a rather dark habit but I had missed him so much that I couldn't say anything. He was giving me a last opportunity and life is too fragile to refuse just for the sake of some sort of self-esteem. I am sure that he had guessed about my weaknesses, how appearances didn't match with my real persona. He might have used it to get me back. But who cares? It worked and to be honest, I was fine with that._

_I came up with the list a few weeks later when we seemed to be back into our old routine as if nothing had happened, as if we hadn't broken up and Michael was only a blurry memory. I don't know if I grew tired of it or simply followed an impulsive moment but I emailed him the questionnaire on a Tuesday morning, from the office; in front of Grace who would have never imagined what was happening._

_After six years of a complete blankness, I wanted to know everything about him from the reason of the scar on his right ankle to his favorite movie. Fifty questions supposed to change our relation, supposed to help me perhaps to accept this failure and my constant return to him. _

_Because if I weren't about to let him go then getting obsessed might have been the only other solution to adopt._

_He didn't complain about it. I don't know if he actually appreciated the initiative but within the next couple of hours, he had sent me back his answers, honest and full ones. _

_This is when something changed for me, between the two of us; when we left behind the path we had been taking for six years. He ceased to be the man I saw twice a week _ in the intimacy of some hotel suite _ to become Will. My Will. _

_Side two:_

_She is allergic to spinach. Fifty questions about her personal life and this is the element I have kept in mind, over the years. I turned the page about the fact she left home at the age of sixteen to never come back; forgot about her two marriages previous to Stanley. I stuck to this tiny detail as if I were the only one to know about it, as if it made me special somehow. _

_Michael's sudden, unexpected presence in my life turned it all upside down but at no moment I thought he was the one. I just tried to convince myself that what he had to offer me was the best, reassuring as well but he definitely belonged to the past and now it was all about Karen. _

_I have never told her about that, about the fact that I freaked out and went for a safer side instead but the way things turned out pushed me to think that it was a sign. _

_I won't lie to you telling that she had always been the one. This is not true. For a very long time she belonged to a complete mystery _ an appealing one _ but that always seemed out of reach._

_I don't know when it happened. Perhaps it all came little by little, softly enough because it never really struck me, hit me like a ton of bricks. Until the moment she sent me back this list, perhaps. She was telling a lot more in it than any conversation would ever do, even those confessions you make in your significant other's arms at the end of the night when you are about to drift off to sleep. _

_But still, at this exact moment I knew that she would always be a part of me; no mattered the rest, what happened next._

_We never mentioned the list. It might seem odd to you but we didn't feel the need to do so, as if by just filling it and sending it back we had closed a chapter over our story; something we should have done earlier to avoid the mess we had gone through. _

_The hotel suite, our respective offices, my apartment... It is rather disturbing to see how easily we all go back to an old routine even when rules have changed, how we desperately need references as if to be excused for our mistakes; as if it softened our guilt. _

_We didn't go through a crisis with Karen, no. It was just another stage in our relationship._


	16. The Right Time

**The Right Time**

The water seemed to slip through her fingers as she caressed his arm, reached his hand and held it tight somewhere under the bubble soaps of their bath, in some hidden place. He planted a kiss on her nape, which eluded a smile on her lips and she closed her eyes relaxing against his chest; leaning her head on his shoulder. She could hear his breath in the silence of the room, the motions of his heart on his flesh as the warmth of his body rocked her peacefully.

They had stopped rushing into things, stopped their constant running after the seconds flying away as soon as they closed the door of the bedroom behind. They took their time and forgot all the rest if only for a few hours in each other's arms. It brought a sensual side to their affair that they had lacked until now.

"Do you ever wonder how it would have gone if things had been different?"

His question put an abrupt end to the soft moment of wander she had lost herself into and she opened her eyes wide, staring at the ceiling intently while trying to analyze the weight of his words. It was not that she preferred the silence to a conversation but he had taken her aback with such a personal request. And naked in his arms _ plunged in a bubble bath at the forty-second floor of some Manhattan palace _ it made her feel vulnerable at the most.

"More than once..."

Her lack of self-confidence still found a healing embrace by Will's side and she let the words come out with a completely assumed bitterness.

"And what are the images that come to your mind, then?"

"I don't know... It is all rather blurry. Actually it is more about a sensation."

"A sensation?"

"Hmm... Of well-being."

A wave of heat rushed up her cheeks as she felt his smile against her bare shoulder.

She didn't turn around to face him, unable to find the courage to do so but she pressed his hand tightly in a quiet, subtle and shy motion. Before a sudden embarrassment, she bit the inside of her mouth and desperately began to count the seconds that separated her last comment from his next one.

She had sounded ridiculous, and corny; two adjectives she had banned from her vocabulary for a very long time when defining herself. They didn't match the personality she had worked on and let people know.

From the corner of her eyes, she observed her bath towel abandoned on the marble counter top. It was too far to grab it then try a furtive exit out of the bathroom that would put an end to her latent shame. She swallowed hard instead, breathed slowly. Then Will spoke, finally.

"I imagine us in a house, somewhere in The Upper West Side; with no argument, no conflict of any sort and no lies. And we would feel so light."

…

He would do just fine.

When the doctor's sentence finally reached her brain, her heart slowed down its pace _ little by little _ and everything seemed to come back to normal. Her mouth ceased to be dry, her hands shaky and all the people passing by her side like in a blurry motion from a world she didn't belong to returned to a normal shade of life she did know.

Relieved about Stanley's health, she was about to tell her friends about it when she heard about their bet and how suddenly she had turned into a money target. It hurt even though at the end, she felt like she was the only one to blame.

She played along. After all it seemed like a good diversion after the scare of the last hours. But all of a sudden she lost, failed while being alone in the hospital room; all by herself. A bitter sensation began to boil in her lower stomach very soon invading her veins before making it to her heart. And it ached, in a cold silence.

The tears had rushed out just as Grace had entered the room. She had never felt so humiliated in her life or at least not in her current one; childhood and adolescence belonging to a vague, faded dream.

"That's my girl..."

The words would resound loud in her head until very late in the night. Like a dizzy whirl of doubts and wonders they would come to oppress her heart until it hurt too much to restrain her cries and she would let go of everything; just like that.

Under a pale light she would keep on unpacking her suitcases, putting it all back on the hangers _ on the shelves _ withsuch a meticulousness so nobody would notice any kind of change; stifling her sobs to not catch anyone's attention in the manse.

She wouldn't look backwards. Haunted by the day she would simply turn the lights off _ get rid of her clothes on the floor _ and slid under the blanket, her skin brushing the cold sheet of the bed. She would close her eyes only to stare at the vivid image of Stanley waiting anxiously for the doctor's verdict in an impersonal room of an impersonal hospital. She would see his wedding ring then feel hers at her finger, almost burning.

But as she would drift off to sleep, the image would get all blurry and she would picture out Will. He would be standing out on the porch of some brownstone, a smile playing on his lips. The reminiscence of his confession during their last shared bath would rock her bitterly and all of a sudden _ coming by flashes, powerful ones _ she would see at her suitcases waiting for her in the walk-in closet; the ones she had packed the exact morning with the strong determination to leave once and for all.

To draw a line under a failed love story then move to The Upper West Side.

With Will; for him.

A moan of pain would close the curtains over the day, taking it all away and shouting loud at her brain that it wasn't the right time for a change.

And Karen got left there, dreamless.


	17. Working on the Distance

**Working on the Distance**

_Side one:_

_The Bahamas turned into a complete fiasco. The secluded place tended to oppress us _ increasing our sentiment of guilt _ and very soon we started arguing, led by this old frustration that had accompanied us since the very beginning; as if Manhattan was the only place that actually suited our affair. I came back home bitter, and uncertain about a thousand things._

_It seemed like we would never find any kind of balance. One day was warm and hopeful when the next one turned into a dark whirl of doubts. Not that this sensation was all new _ no _ but for the very first time I got tired of it. From the lightness of an add in an adult magazine I suddenly found myself looking for a constancy in him when it should have come from my marriage. Will didn't have to bring me some sort of reassuring feeling. He was just there to sexually satisfy me. _

_So we took our distance with each other, reducing to an average of once a week our encounters. I spent more time with Jack and tried to get closer to my step-children when he concentrated on Grace as if nothing ever happened. I envied him the easiness with which he moved around, lied to people but the truth is that our new schedule resulted fine with me. _

_I missed him in a less disturbing way than before our summer trip to the islands, when our relationship had seemed to suddenly embrace the shades of obsession; of an odd, disturbing fusion. Back to the city we learned little by little how to reassemble the principles of an affair, burying the slightest attempt of an intimacy that would make us cross the limits. _

_One step forward, two steps backwards; a frustrating scheme that nonetheless sounded right._

_Stanley's health had improved but as much as I still could picture out the suitcases I had dared to pack once, I couldn't convince myself to leave him now. What can I say? I am extremely coward. That must be why I have spent my entire life relying on others to make of me who I am._

_I wished I had had someone to share my wonders with, to listen advices from and they would sound so reassuring. For the very first time I regretted this secretive side of my life I had always found appealing but like trapped in my own stratagems, I had to deal with it all by myself. _

_I almost said it all to Grace _ giving names, describing the slightest detail _ on a foggy morning that had emphasized my quiet distress. I don't think it was naivety but just a latent fatigue leading to some hopes that she would understand everything; because I wasn't any woman. Because it was Will and she knew that she could trust me._

_But this is when she found out about Diane and one more time, I backed in retreat._

_Side two:_

_I am not in love with Grace. It goes beyond, as if I was living through her and when she is not around, the whole machine sets off. A weight oppresses my chest, my mouth is dry and I am breathless. She isn't just a part of me but my real soul mate. That's why I can't afford to argue with her, just in case one day I definitely lose her. What will happen, then? Who will feed my breath, heal the pain on my chest?_

_My relation to Karen is different. She is addicting, stole my dreams when Grace is just vital to me. _

_But still... When Jack mentioned Diane, I looked at both women sat down in front of me at the table of this restaurant. For a few seconds I locked my eyes with theirs and tried to read through them. If Grace had a barely controlled anger, Karen's hazel gaze resulted to be some sort of an ocean of pain._

_If I had been alone with Karen, I would have grabbed her hand and told her that she would always be the one, in spite of this upside down patchwork of life she had kept on learning about me since we had changed the rules of our affair. But for the moment lacking intimacy, I rushed to Grace instead and faced a few facts I shouldn't have kept for myself. But all along I thought about Karen, about the incomprehension in her eyes, this latent pain._

_I hate to be the one to blame when dealing with her sadness. She doesn't succumb to her sobs easily but when she does, it leaves me disarmed as if by taking her in my arms, I would break down into pieces this whole shield she likes so much. She is very fragile, a lot more than Grace, Jack or me. She is just better at hiding it._

_She didn't return my calls for two days in a row and when I showed up at her place, Rosario told me that she was out, running some errands. It was a lie. I know Karen. _

_It was a Monday evening, under the rain. The streets were glimmering like a thousand diamonds and the rare passers-by seemed to slide on the asphalt like through some magic trick. I was heading back home when I saw her heading out of The Public Library. She didn't have an umbrella but didn't seem to care that much either, huddled as she was in her trench coat. I stopped the cab I was in and rushed out to her. _

_She didn't even look surprised to see me there, as if she had been waiting for nothing but it all along. _

"_I love you, Kare..."_

_I swallowed hard, passed a hand through my soaked-wet hair then shook my head._

"_I love you... I love you, Karen."_


	18. Perspectives of Lives

**Perspectives of Lives**

Perhaps her heart began to beat faster or, on the exact opposite, slowed down dangerously on the verge to stop definitely. Perhaps an immense joy ran through her veins and made her feel alive unless she had to swallow hard in order to sweep away the latent fear his words had suddenly stirred up. Who knows? Perhaps she had no idea herself, taken aback by Will's confession under the pouring rain and that's why she remained quiet before awkwardly hugging him tight.

They spent the rest of the night together behind the door of their hotel suite, under the warmth of the sheets; in each other's arms until life took them back into the routine they knew the best.

For years she had been said those words _ by a dozen different men _ and they had sounded more or less convincing, more or less sincere. Before them she had always remained blank and unable to decide upon anything; quiet, coldly. But for once she had found someone who didn't seem to care about all this silence she couldn't overcome. For once someone respected her lack of words and didn't get mad at it. It was reassuring even though she couldn't help feeling guilty.

But instead of throwing a fit at her, Will sent flowers to the office anonymously, two days a week and it made her blush, shrugging it all away when Grace asked about it.

It all happened a few days after Thanksgiving, within the few hours of an evening; a couple of words. All of a sudden the situation tipped over to never be the same anymore and not just in the little sphere of their hotel suite but in their public life as well, the one they didn't hide but lied along with a terrible easiness.

"If you don't leave Stanley then you will lose me. I don't want to take part in this anymore. I can't."

"What is happening, all of a sudden? What is wrong with... With this?"

With a vague motion of the head, Karen showed the hotel room to Will then frowned; a bit perplexed. His determination was a brand new one and she didn't know how to deal with it, didn't know what to say or how. Something was happening _ something serious _ and all she could say was that she didn't like the fact it would carry along heavy consequences.

"I have met her."

Intrigued, Karen grabbed a cigarette and lit it on before concentrating back on Will. An unexplainable feeling pushed her to think that the conversation he had just started would last for a long time, be heavy and hard. She hadn't prepared for this at all. It was just supposed to be one of their weekly encounters and all of a sudden he had thrown to her face the scheme of what looked like a bitterly unforgettable discussion. She was disarmed and it wasn't fair. She hated it.

"Whom are you talking about?"

"Tina, my father's mistress. He brought him yesterday, to my place."

"What does she look like?"

"Young, attractive enough I suppose... But this is not the question. This is not the matter."

"Then what is it?"

"I can't stand the idea of what this woman is doing to my parents, to their marriage; the family I grew up in. They are my references and there comes Tina, making it all crash like the wind would blow on a house of cards. I hate her. I hate what she represents. And yet I am just like her..."

He had thought about it, probably all night long and never managed to fall asleep. She could see it in his gaze, the way pain and anger seemed to fight in silence for the first place. She raised an eyebrow while thinking about a good reply, vaguely honest but she ended up in denial, shaking her head slowly.

"No, Will, you are not her that I can tell you about because you are not ruining anything between Stan and I..."

"Maybe I am not anymore but I surely contributed to it at some point in the past."

She hid it all in a forced laughter before nervously crashing in the ashtray her cigarette. She didn't like the path the conversation was taking. It was a dangerous one, too close to a truth they tried to ignore as much as they could.

"There are different kinds of marriages in this world, honey. Just like there are different kinds of affairs and we all have our reasons; more or less fair. But what your parents are going through has nothing to do with my husband and I. We had failed since the very beginning when I am sure that you were born in a family where love still had some meaning. Look at me. Look at Stan. We didn't build anything, at no moment, together. It says it all... And you aren't the one to blame for this. Besides I went for you, not the contrary."

"Then if there is no chance for you and Stan anymore, ask for a divorce. Be with me. I don't want to be the third one anymore. I can't stand this situation because it is too close to what my parents live. I need to be with you, once and for all... Will we ever get it?"

She avoided his eyes by cowardice, knowing as a fact that if she did, she would burst into cries. All she thought about turned out to be Jack, and Grace; all these things they had brought to her life since she had had the chance to meet them, thanks to Will. She owed them so much if not everything.

But then there were all these details gravitating around, a whole series of past experiences they had had to go through and built their friendship from. If you broke them, it would all fall down into pieces and you would be left with ruins of an extraordinary _ improbable _ life opportunity.

Smiling bitterly, she frowned and shook her head; swallowed hard while her eyes remained fixed on an invisible point on the carpet.

"You have no idea how I wish it were as easy as you think it is."


	19. Parallelisms

**Parallelisms**

_Side one:_

_I let him go away. I didn't try to hold him back. I remained on the couch and stared a bit blankly how he stood up, walked to the door then left in the silence of the evening. I didn't call his name like in the movies. You know, when the heroes are about to go through different paths but finally realize they can't do that because they can't live without each other. _

_But it is never the way it works in real life. Never. _

_A week passed by before he began to talk about some guy and soon enough he was involved into a new relation I was not part of. I hated that but the urge of some pride prevented me from showing the least sign and I simply ignored the fact he was already dating someone. _

_He had given me all the things he owned: his love, his trust and the promise of a future we would spend together. I turned everything down that night and reduced to ashes the courage he had had. Because it takes you so much to dare to say it all, to show your naked soul to the abrupt daylight even though you know how vulnerable you are. _

_I took some distance with The Upper West Side _ only going there once in a while _ and pretended to be with Stanley when I actually spent most of my time alone in the penthouse. _

_I have a very dull life. It has always been like that, since the very beginning when I entered the circle of New York socialites. When the season is over and there is no party you are supposed to attend, your agenda slowly turns into a petrifying white and you are left there _ among two expensive armchairs _ without having the mere idea of the reason why you are here in the first place. _

_This is also why I looked for a job, why I posted this ad in an adult magazine once. I needed to escape the boredom of my so-called incredible life in order to save myself from a complete breakdown. And it worked. It worked so well._

_I looked for a diversion in Grace and Jack but whenever I locked my eyes with theirs, the guilt came back and I ended up in a quiet despair; a betrayal that would never go away in spite of time passing by. But I still smiled... I am good at smiling when I actually want to cry. At least people leave you alone by then. They never ask for the reason of your happiness when they feed themselves with your sorrow. It isn't very hard to pretend that everything is alright. _

_No matters you carry along a broken heart._

_Side two:_

"_My father used to say that if I was bad at chess, it was because I didn't plan anything; I didn't try to imagine the next move I should make in order to win. He died when I was seven. I have never asked my mother or anyone about the reason of his death but I assume it was a cancer now that the years have passed by and memories fly back to my mind. _

_I think he was right. I am unable to put things onto perspective mostly because I am too afraid to break it down into pieces, to fail when all I want is to succeed. Even if you gave me another chance, I am sure that I wouldn't take it. I would keep on missing out opportunities and you would end up forgetting me._

_And to be honest, it is the best that could happen to you._

_I owe you a thousand things from the honesty of a smile in the morning to the words you told me on the stairs of The Public Library. You gave me hope when I had lost faith in breathing, lost the purpose of my life somewhere behind, between two bad choices. I wish I could play this moment over and over but this time I would dare to tell you what never came out. _

_I love you._

_But even in a letter I barely find the courage to do so and that's why I will only thank you for being my friend. A precious one I don't really deserve but whom I am so glad to have in this hell of a life I don't want to be mine. _

_I wish someone could take me away at some point and I would finally be alright._

_But you can't be the one. You can't._

_Karen"_

_I found the letter on my desk _ at work _ on a sunny morning of March. I have no idea how many times I read it, how many times my eyes studied her handwriting in the merest detail. _

_But now I know it by heart and it is engraved here, on my mind._

_For long minutes I imagined a reply. I even began to write it down but the words wouldn't come up so I dropped it out. Anyway I am sure that she didn't want anything back. Through the letter she had closed a chapter over her life, maybe even made peace with herself; at last. _

_I let her go away. I didn't hold her back. I remained sat on my armchair and stared a bit blankly how she slowly faded away, taking her distance with me before vanishing completely from the dreams I had had once. _


	20. Along Came Will

**Along Came Will**

"I remember when you used to smile, when your eyes sparkled with delight and you were fine. I miss these moments, now."

She decided not to reply; no mattered she had opened her mouth to do so, succumbing more to some instinctive reaction of her brain than to a real desire to give into a conversation. She would have been harsh if she hadn't chosen silence over words. In an unfair desire of revenge _ releasing her frustration _ she would have tried to make her friend feel bad claiming that she had actually never felt fine; that it had all been about appearances and she still wondered now what real happiness could be.

Instead, she grabbed an olive and bit into it; glass of vodka in hand. But her obvious reluctance didn't discourage Grace who went on.

"I understand that it is hard, that you might even feel humiliated and betrayed somehow but have you decided to stop embracing life until Stanley makes his way out of jail? Because if so, it can take a while you know..."

Laughter from the living-room made her jump in surprise. She cast a glance at the door opened ajar but nobody showed up and very soon the library she was in plunged back into a cold silence.

"Don't you remember what you told me when Nathan and I broke up? You couldn't be righter and today it might be time for you to put your advices in practice in your very own life."

As much as Grace's words were wise, there was a whole parallel series of facts that she ignored and yet complicated the situation even more starting with the bitter choice to put an end to her affair with Will in order to save the few last ounces of respect she had towards her marriage with Stanley. Now she saw everything as a pointless sacrifice that turned up every week into a ridiculous jail visit.

As the weeks had passed by, she had learned about the routine of such shameful situations, engraved on her mind the smell of the parlor and the iciness of the metallic walls; the loud noise of the plastic chairs whenever you moved an inch. She hated this world she didn't belong to and yet was forced to go in for a reason that seemed less and less clear.

She didn't hate Stanley but despised him strongly; missed Will desperately.

"Since when one of these stupid family reunions at The Truman's is supposed to make me all happy? I can get a Martini anywhere. I don't need to drive all this long for it."

"Marilyn likes you..."

The comment made her roll her eyes and she was about to reply when Grace's end of sentence made her freeze within a second.

"And as much as you can't stand him, I know that Will is glad to have you here. I don't know why you are so distant with him. It isn't fair because he has always been here for you, especially since Stan went to prison. You might feel frustrated right now _ and angry _ but you know that you can rely on Will so make an effort or you might end up losing him as well; losing a very good friend even though you don't recognize it yet."

The words came out before she could control them, something boiling hard in her lower stomach. She clenched her fists, swallowed hard.

"I am sorry, Gracie, but you can't say that to me. Because you have no idea what Will means to me. You don't know the slightest thing about him and I. Not that it would be your fault but... That I can't accept it. I can't accept this remark because Will is... There is no word to describe what he means to me. He is a lot more than a friend, even a very close one. He is so much more than what you would even be able to imagine. He means so much to me, so much if not just everything..."

"Ah... Here you are! We have been looking for you for quite a while, now. The lunch is ready, come on! Oh and Karen, there is some drink I want you to try first so please follow me."

She had talked too much, had reached a honesty she hadn't seen arrived but that now she regretted as Grace's perplexity and confusion kept on staring at her in spite of Marilyn storming into the library and putting an end to the odd confession without any warning.

She looked how Grace frowned, obviously eager for more details because nothing seemed to make the slightest sense anymore but lacking courage, she took advantage of Marilyn's request to hurry out and escape from what sounded more and more like some horrible mistake.

She avoided Grace all along the meal which resulted easy enough since she had sat down on the other side of the table next to Jack and a couple of Truman cousins. But her heart kept on beating too fast and she felt panic spread as she began to elaborate a thousand scenarios in her head. How would she be able to come up with a good lie after having sounded so disarmed and honest? Not that there was anything to say since they were not together anymore. Subtle way to avoid a truth she didn't know how to deal with somehow...

"Aren't you cold outside? Nobody would have cared if you had smoked into the house."

His sudden voice and so presence in her back made her gasp. Within a second she turned around as the heat rushed up to her cheeks; she swallowed hard but didn't break eye-contact with him. The sun was slowly going down in the sky now and the colors were fading away, bringing an odd shade to the place.

"I am sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

She shook her head before giving him a pale smile, then shrugged as he made a few steps closer to her.

"We are about to leave, now. I hope you didn't find the day too long or boring..."

"No, it was... It was okay and..."

She thought about Grace's words in the library and the reproaches she had faced. It might not have sounded fair by then but it was still right except this distance she had put between Will and her was the only way she had found to go on after their breakup.

"Thank you for everything, for what you did for Stan and me... Thank you for being here for me. I am sorry I didn't thank you earlier. I... You know how I hate all these things, don't you, honey?"

She hadn't called him like that for a long time and the way the word came out by itself took her aback. But Will smiled back, nodding quietly and all of a sudden the weight of the accumulated tension of the past months seemed to vanish. She accepted his arms, making a definitive peace with herself; with him.

She had missed him.

"Thank you, Will. Thank you for everything."


	21. Backwards Forward On Pause

**Backwards, Forward, On Pause**

_Side one:_

_Have you ever felt like playing a moment forward or putting it on pause? Not necessarily by cowardice but because it seemed better like that... If you told me you hadn't, I wouldn't believe you anyway because we all do at some point in our lives. That I am sure of._

_This is what happened between Grace and I. The very next day following my awkward confession, she had to go away for a couple of weeks; for business purposes. We accompanied her to the airport and it is only when she locked her eyes with mine that I understood she hadn't forgotten and even worse, had had time to think about it; to analyze my words. She might have been leaving for a while, the heaviness of her gaze was clear enough to let me guess that she would ask for further details when she came back here, to Manhattan. _

_Her plane took off but I kept on carrying along the uneasiness of the wait, letting me time to elaborate a thousand scenarios in my head that did nothing but spread a latent panic, a quiet one. _

_Retrospectively, I assume it is a matter of circumstances from Grace's sudden absence to the peace we had made at his parents' place the day before that pushed Will and I towards each other one more time. But without any hotel suite, without any lie whatsoever. We simply began to spend longer moments out or at his place, together. We talked a lot as if trying to catch back on time, on all these years of silence we had imposed to ourselves at some point in our lives. _

_We went back to the opera and even though I didn't kiss him on the sidewalk this time, I held his hand tight, feeding myself with his warmth as if I needed to do so in order to feel alive. I wasn't born to be alone but yet this is how I felt most of my life; lonely and sad. This sentiment only increased when Stan went to prison and perhaps Will was the one who could help me go through that._

"_Would you like to stay here, tonight?"_

_A week and a half had passed by since Grace had left for California. As the movie had ended and we had looked up by the window, we had seen the first snowflakes of the winter quietly fall down over New York in the darkness of the night. _

_I should have turned him down. I should have always turned him down but if the words might have hit my mind _ several times _ they seemed to get lost at some point before reaching my lips. Arms crossed on my chest, I simply nodded at him and this is how I ended up huddled against him._

_Side two:_

_She felt asleep against me, her breath slowly caressing my neck with a peaceful regularity that in all sincerity, I had missed a lot. We didn't kiss, didn't make love but yet our relation had nothing platonic. In the dark, by her side, I suddenly began to think about the beginning, almost eight years before when we had got to meet. It is crazy how two people can evolve without you slightly noticing it until at some precise moment, when you open your eyes only to realize that you can't recognize them anymore. _

_This is when I wished that I could have come backwards and erased some mistakes that had led us to a wrong path. When I wished our respective lives hadn't had crossed each other because of a singular ad in an adult magazine. How about we would have met at the corner of a street or at the coffee store like in the movies? I would have taken her number and barely waited for ten minutes before calling her back. We would have started dating and instead of this odd, awkward relationship that was pushing us in my bed without the slightest kiss, we would have simply shared our day-to-day routine for the rest of our life. _

_And be happy._

_Have you ever felt like playing one specific moment backwards? Not necessarily by melancholy but because you thought that the past might have deserved another scheme... If you told me you hadn't, I wouldn't believe you anyway because we all do at some point in our lives. That I am sure of. Aren't you? I don't know what it is that we always despise the present and focus so much on moments we don't have an hold on. This is the best way to miss it all out at the end but we can't help doing that._

"_I love you, Kare."_

_My whisper came to die in the kiss I planted on top of her head then I closed my eyes and let the night embrace us quietly. When I woke up the next morning, she had gone. The bed was empty, cold. I rolled on my back and looked by the window. The snow had spread its white net over the city, stifling sounds of life as we walk on tiptoes not to wake up anyone. _

_Though for once it sounded more like a betrayal, not leaving me a chance to tell her goodbye._

_She kept on hailing cabs night after night then, heading straight to her mansion in The Upper East Side to avoid to spend any more hours in my arms. We remained close though, but it sounded awkward as if by asking her to stay by my side, we had crossed the lines one more time. But what if for once we tried to play it forward, then see where it went? _

_I didn't have time to ask her about that. The few last days passed by and Grace came back._


	22. Delicate Power of Suggestion

**Delicate Power of Suggestion**

She didn't go to pick her up at the airport, didn't show up at The Riverside Drive apartment and strictly avoided the office for a long period. It was a pure gesture of cowardice but since from time to time she seemed to disappear from the surface of Earth without any warning, it kind of passed unnoticed to Will and Jack.

Her resolution to ignore all the calls resulted pointless as her cell phone never rang, not even once as if after all, her presence among them wasn't that important. The world kept on turning _ no mattered her absence _ leaving an odd sensation of transience on her mind and she wondered why she had thought it would be different by their side. His side.

All along she secretly hoped for a message, a letter or an email but Will remained desperately quiet and one more time she began to question the exact nature of their relation. Perhaps she had misunderstood his behavior, mistaken it for some dead-end fantasy she hadn't dared to say out loud when with him. He had turned the page, just as she had forced him to do and now she was the one to blame.

"Good morning..."

She had waited in the coffee store opposite the building for two hours, looking for the tone that would sound light enough as if nothing had ever happened; built up a whole conversation of random facts just like any other day. But as she finally stepped into the office and saw Grace sat at her desk _ working on some sketches _ she knew that she had failed and that it was too late.

The casualness with which she abandoned her bag on her own desk suddenly vanished as Grace looked up at her. Blankly, with an obvious anger.

"I wondered if you would ever come back. If you were that coward..."

If she had failed upon choosing a singular tone of voice, Grace didn't and the coldness of her words hit the air with a disturbing self-confidence. In spite of all Karen gave an attempt to a pale, fragile smile that didn't find resonance in her friend's gaze.

Within a second she regretted everything from the ad in the adult magazine to the easiness with which she had accepted Will's suggestion to apply for an assistant position at the interior design office. Maybe her existence would have been dull and tasteless with Stanley but at least she would have avoided what was about to happen, the downfall of precious relationships she had miserably ruined.

Very slowly Grace stood up and mug of coffee in hand headed to the window to lean over it. She took a sip of her drink, her eyes fixed on the metallic fire escape. It is only when she started talking that Karen realized she had herself remained still, next to her desk; her coat on.

"When did you begin to sleep with him? Was it during one of my business trips or when I was already asleep in the room next door? Had I broken up with Nathan or you actually knew him before? You were not his client, were you? You..."

"Grace..."

"I think you should take some days off."

A few seconds flew away during which Karen pondered on an eventual reply, a bit taken aback by the way Grace had just cut her mid-sentence with a cold, low anger. Timidly she made a step towards her friend but stopped and grabbed her desk instead realizing thus that she was losing her balance.

"Are you firing me?"

"I said that you should take some days off and it starts now."

Grace's low tone of voice suddenly reached a higher octave as she locked her eyes with Karen's hazel ones. Before it, Karen jumped and made an instinctive step backwards; looked down as her throat hurt and tears seemed to rush up to her eyes. She had always hated conflicts for the simple reason that they constantly highlighted the fragility she desperately tried to hide and then she began to panic.

"I... I am sorry. I..."

Her uneasiness didn't pass unnoticed and pushed Grace to laugh bitterly at it.

"You should have thought about it before, don't you think so? Now leave."

With a shaking hand and trying to swallow back her shame, Karen grabbed her bag. She was about to turn around and follow her friend's delicate suggestion when the boiling frustration she had hold on for too long finally came up. This time the words didn't disappear somewhere in between. They went from her heart to her lips with strength and frowning at the situation, she shook her head at Grace.

"I didn't even know that you existed. I didn't even know his family name or the fact he was an attorney. His life was a complete mystery to me, just as mine was to him. This is not fair, this... I am sorry to say this but even though you might feel betrayed, there are a lot of things you still ignore about it. Like the way we met, the circumstances. You..."

"And so what? Once you got to know me you could have stopped. Besides, what about your marriage? How can you do that to Stanley? It is plainly disgusting."

"Oh my marriage, yes you are right. Let's talk about it and how I have spent the last two years trying to save it _ ruining all the rest _ just to learn at the end that my husband had planned a tax evasion in my back and got sentenced to jail. Not only did Stanley make me feel guilty for absolutely nothing but I renounced to so much more because of him. We aren't unfaithful for six years in a row for no reason. Don't you understand there is more? Don't you just see that I can't put an end to anything? The minute I knew about you I wished I had had been able to draw a line under Will. And I tried, over and over. But I always go back to him, I can't help it... Because... Because..."

If the words had come up with a troubling easiness until now, the very last ones seemed to get lost in a whirl of confusion and cowardice. It shouldn't have happened like that. Grace shouldn't have been the one to hear them first but at the same time _ because of the complexity of the situation _ Karen would have wished nothing but having landed her eyes on another man.

"Because I love him... I love him, Gracie."

She barely heard the words herself, wrapped as they were in a whisper of incertitude and pain. And to avoid a tougher face-to-face _ this time not with her friend but with her own confession _ Karen left the office in a mumble of apologies.


	23. Orchard Street Lower East Side

**Orchard Street, Lower East Side**

_Side one:_

_I was born and raised in The Lower East Side. We had a two-bedroom apartment on Orchard Street. It was very small but I used to love it. I remember the metallic fire escape in front of the kitchen window and a perpetual smell of bread coming from some bakery, a few feet down the street. If I close my eyes, I can picture it all out; as if time hadn't passed by, as if my father hadn't died. I still can overhear the neighbors' radio and the Chinese melody they used to listen all day long on weekends while the dog on the third floor kept on barking as soon as someone used the stairs. It was noisy, rather unsafe and dirty but it was my place, my home. And I belong to it._

_For two decades I meticulously avoided the street knowing that if I happened to walk by there, it would hurt because I hadn't turned the page, hadn't forgotten all the rest. Besides, Manhattan changed a lot these past few years so my references would have probably got lost somewhere in between blurry dreams and the ruins of an old building I wouldn't have recognized as mine. _

_I didn't want that to happen. My life is upside down enough to not damage the very few years I still see as balanced and that's why I had never go back there. _

_Or at least I thought so until my confrontation with Grace when everything fell down within a second. I rushed out on the street, took a deep breath of air but my heartbeats didn't calm down; on the contrary. I felt the urge begin to boil in my lower stomach, oppress my mind and all of a sudden I found myself at the mercy of years of failures, a whole series of them I had kept on ignoring. I didn't hail a cab, simply walked towards Orchard Street with the odd determination you never really expect; the one that takes you aback but still sounds right at the end. _

_We moved out when my father passed away but she never sold the place, only rented it once in a while when her lucrative plans didn't work out. She came back to Manhattan in the early 90's and decided to live on Orchard Street as if nothing had happened; in a ridiculous attempt to convince herself that she hadn't done anything wrong, perhaps. I don't know, I have never asked about it. But still... _

_I knew where she worked _ where she lived _ but we had agreed upon a monthly cheque as the unique way of communication between the two of us and this is how we spent so much time in the same city without seeing each other, not even from time to time. Lois was my mother though I only considered her as the woman who had given birth to me and eventually screwed it up for money._

_This is odd how moments of vulnerability push us to go back to the people who hurt us the most; as if we still found comfort in their mean, heartbroken behaviors._

_Side two:_

"_I am afraid I have just done something bad, very bad to you."_

_The moment I heard Grace's words, I knew whom she was talking about and why; as much as it sounded odd because unplanned. I nonetheless played along, almost by instinct._

"_What do you mean?"_

"_You love her, don't you? She is in love with you."_

_She seemed calm but confused, and hurt. I wished I had been by her side to take her in my arms and we would have avoided the impersonal, cold aspect of a phone call. She had cried. Her tears had spread a veil over her voice and if she had been mad at some point, now she only sounded resigned. _

"_What happened, Grace?"_

_..._

_She hadn't showed up at The Upper East Side mansion since the exact morning when she had left for work. Her cell phone had been turned off and the rare people susceptible to have seen her happened to be as disarmed as I was. _

_Karen had disappeared, one more time._

_Hours melted in days that slowly vanished into weeks and if curiosity never abandoned Grace and Jack they remained quiet over it, realizing perhaps that the circumstances weren't idyllic to clear it all up so suddenly._

_Of course she didn't show up at the weekly visits to the federal jail in Brooklyn and carefully avoided to use her credit cards so she could remain in a complete anonymity. _

"_It is all my fault. I am sorry."_

"_No, it is mine. I should have been honest since the very beginning."_

_Against all expectations the situation pushed me towards Grace and strengthened our relation. Nothing would ever be like before but we actually were okay with it, overcame the changes without the dreading feelings that had nourished us for so long. We were still "Will and Grace", this improbable couple that nobody would have ever been able to really describe but yet they all lusted for, secretly._

_Only a few hours were left before Christmas Eve and the streets were boiling; filled of serene smiles as old Christmas carols were being played in the background under the multicolored lights that decorated the streets. We had stopped by a small coffee place somewhere in The Lower East Side for a hot drink in order to escape from the cold wind outside. The place was small, cozy enough. _

_I have no idea why I turned my head around at this exact moment and looked by the old, dirty window. I like thinking that it is fate, that it was written somewhere but who knows? I felt how my heart speed up its pace, all of a sudden, while I remained there; a bit blank. _

_I may have become paler because Grace noticed it and asked me how I felt. I just frowned and without breaking eye-contact with the sidewalk opposite the street, I pointed it out with a shaking hand._

"_I have just seen Karen. She entered the third-story building, there."_


	24. When The Clock Stuck Twelve

**When The Clock Stuck Twelve**

The building was very old, and dark. As Will entered the lobby, a strong smell of dust filled his lungs and he started coughing. The mailboxes were broken and a pile of fliers was littering the tiled floor of faded colors that had once promised a better tomorrow before vanishing in a whirl of disillusions. A dog was barking on the upper stories, vaguely covering the murmur of a radio.

"Are you sure that it was Karen whom you saw step in here?"

It seemed that time had got suspended over the building while the rest of the city had kept on changing through the decades and it didn't match Karen the slightest. Yet certain he hadn't suffered from any hallucination, Will nodded to his friend then took the stairs up. The urge to see her back was boiling in his lower stomach. His heart was beating fast, too much.

At his knock on the unique door of the first floor, the radio stopped and a few seconds later an old lady opened the door. She was Chinese and had probably been living there for a very long time.

"Excuse me, is Karen Walker here?"

With a fragile hand the woman pointed out the story above her head.

"Little Karen has always been on the second floor."

With a barely contained impatience Will rushed up the stairs before repeating his knock, this time on what was supposed to be the right door. He felt his heart fall in disappointment as a woman opened to stare at him with suspicion. She was short, with dark hair and a cigarette in her hand.

"What can I do for you?"

Her tone of voice was low, probably veiled by the nicotine after so many years of smoking. If Grace had decided to remain in the background, Will didn't lose his courage and smiled politely.

"Is Karen here?"

A few seconds flew away before the woman shook her head.

"There is no Karen living here, sorry."

She was about to close back the door when a high-pitched voice pierced in the background and all of a sudden Karen appeared, focused on buttoning a pair of black pants; her top slightly pulled up, revealing thus her stomach. It wasn't flat anymore. A light bump had subtly changed the curves of her body.

"I really need to buy a new pair, mom. This one obviously doesn't fit any..."

The end of her sentence never made it out. The words vanished as she looked up and realized that she was facing Will, and Grace. A sudden discomfort spread over but one more time the woman holding the door shook her head before starting to close it.

"No, don't. That's okay."

With a firm hand on the door Karen shook her head at her mother who quietly went away into the flat without asking more questions. Leaning on the frame, Karen locked her hazel eyes with Will's brown ones; bit her lower lip. She looked perplexed, a bit lost and confused.

"What... How did you find me?"

"You are pregnant?"

Blush rushed up her cheeks and she immediately pulled down her top, trying desperately to overcome a situation she hadn't planned, hadn't even thought about. But her precipitated gesture vanished in a slow resignation as she let a sigh come out before nodding; staring intently at her feet.

"Four months and a half... Almost five now, to be exact."

"When... When did you know about it?"

"The day..."

She looked up at Grace who had remained behind in spite of the unexpected turn the situation seemed to be taking. She swallowed hard, trying to analyze her friend's feelings. She didn't look mad or angry anymore. Actually there was even pain and guilt in her eyes; self-control as well perhaps, unless it was wisdom, acceptance.

"I didn't mean to hide it from you. It just... It just wasn't supposed to happen this way around and... I am sorry."

An odd silence began to float above their heads only troubled by the murmur of the Chinese woman's radio. The dog had stopped barking, now.

"Is it a girl or..."

"I don't know. My mother thinks it is a girl but I secretly hope it is a boy. I am not sure why, though."

Shrugging, she looked up at him and smiled apologetically. Something hurt in her throat, the prelude of the exact same tears she had felt running on her face the day she had left the office and walked to Orchard Street as if by necessity; by instinct. She had missed him.

Her smile froze as he made a step forward. She swallowed hard, began to panic and finally gasped as he captured her lips in a soft, long kiss.

She never left his arms from then on. Within an hour they headed back to The Upper West Side and let Christmas Eve rock them peacefully after such a long time of uncertainty, so many upside downs. The clock stuck twelve and as she leaned backwards against Will's chest, Karen knew she was finally at the right place.

"Merry Christmas..."

"Merry Christmas..."

"Merry Christmas..."

"Merry Christmas..."

The four friends fell asleep on the couch, under a warm blanket; one next to each other. When she woke up the next morning in Will's arms, Karen remained still and observed the scene. For so many years she had convinced herself that she had done nothing but failing, reducing her life to ashes. But from this perspective, all of a sudden, it simply looked like a whole new beginning.


	25. The Principles of an Affair

**The Principles of an Affair**

_Side one:_

_Stanley asked for a divorce a few weeks after Christmas, breaking the news that he had met someone in jail. It didn't hurt at all, on the contrary. I guess we both felt relieved at the end because we knew that it had to cease._

_Liam was born on April, 24th at 3.30pm; exactly four months after Will knocked on my mother's door in The Lower East Side. I want to believe that it is a sign, that it was meant to be. It might sound naïve to see things like this but it brings an ounce of sweetness to my existence, something unique that I actually need. Because my past isn't that bright, that easy. _

_When the pregnancy test turned positive, I immediately decided to put an end to it. As a matter of fact, it never crossed my mind that I could have a child. Wrong person, wrong time, wrong choices of life but the plans fell down as soon as I arrived to the clinic. I couldn't manage to walk in, to face the situation and assume it. It takes a lot of courage to go through an abortion, a lot of strength that I lack of. Now I see it as a chance but if things hadn't turned this way around, I don't know where I would be now. _

_It was an accident. I didn't try to get pregnant, at absolutely no moment. It just happened and there is nothing else to add. Though it is odd to think that for so long it didn't work out and all of a sudden with Will a night resulted enough. I don't know if there is a scheme where it would be all written down but I love the way things come to us; awkwardly perhaps _ a little upside down _ but we are doing just fine now._

_I still have to deal with a hundred insecurities, a whole series of doubts especially concerning my son. I might have given birth to him but the hardest still has to come and I am scared to death to do it wrong. What if I hurt him? What if something bad happens? What if I wake up in the middle of the night _ just as I do so many times _ only to realize he has stopped breathing? _

_It is a whole whirl of some dizzy panic, some sort of constant uncertainty but maybe it is the way it has to be; maybe it is what maternity actually is. And to be honest _ in spite of all _ when I hear my little boy giggle, I wouldn't switch it for anything in this world._

_I owe this to Will, who pushes me every day to believe in myself then see where it leads._

_Side two:_

_I replied to the ad by pure curiosity, looking for a rebound after Michael put an end to our relationship. I would have never imagined that these singular encounters would make my life tip over and that very soon Karen would mean a lot to me, if not everything. _

_I don't know what kind of principles affairs are supposed to settle down; if it just a matter of flesh and a tad of human contact _ trying to escape from lonely moments _ or something more complex that will eventually lead to this exact moment when you realize that you can't live without each other. Then you stop being mere lovers to become a real couple without having the slightest hold on it. It just happens and you have to deal with it._

_Whatever it is, I don't regret it._

_We talked a lot about it with Grace, how Karen spilling out her feelings for me had let her perplexed and disarmed. She had felt ashamed, then, for having misunderstood it all with such harshness. That's why she had called me and apologized; no mattered our references had suddenly broken down into a thousand pieces and nothing had seemed to make sense anymore._

_But finally it strengthened our strange relation even more, just as it did between Jack and I. Isn't it odd how we always dread changes when most of the times they actually turn out to be positive? I still don't understand this fear we all have before each other, before life itself. Perhaps we should start trusting it._

_Karen and I aren't married. We wake up in each other's arms every morning, raise our child together and spend most of our time with our beloved ones. Somehow it is very close to the idea I have always had of my life, the way I wanted to live it. So I guess we can say that I have succeeded._

_I don't think we actually need more. We are happy and this is the most important, isn't it?_

_Kare is the person who allowed me to make peace with myself, to take some distance with a couple of mistakes and accept the fact I can't control everything. She calms me down, brings a lot to me. When I see her with Liam, I think about a thousand things: the first time we met, the hotel suite, the mystery of six years of blurriness and how the unknown sounded appealing by then._

_It all seems kind of unbalanced, conceptions made of nothing but a series of rules that look lame. If most of people had been asked about our affair, they wouldn't have given it a chance in spite of the years. I wouldn't have done it myself to be honest nor would have had Karen but here we are now. _

_Hand in hand._

_And if there is one principle to remember then I would go with this one because it comes to determine all the rest._

The End.


End file.
